REVIEW: Barrier #1 by Brian K. Vaughan, Marcos Martin, & Munsta Vicente

Brian K. Vaughan has done the superhero thing, he’s penned critically-beloved works like Ex Machina and Y: The Last Man,  and he’s currently writing a pair of powerhouse Image titles in Paper Girls and Saga. Vaughan also runs Panel Syndicate, a webcomics platform through which he puts out widescreen graphic stories directly to readers, along with collaborators artist Marcos Martin and colorist Munsta Vincente.

Panel Syndicate is where the recently-Eisner-nominated Barrier comes from. It’s a bilingual story of immigration and borders with a sci-fi twist, and following a Free Comic Book Day tease, it arrives this week in local comic shops. So, we're diving into Barrier ourselves, having not yet read the full series, approaching it as a first-time reader.

Barrier, unsurprisingly, is well-done and interesting, of the same quality as the creative team’s past collaborations: Private Eye (2013) and The Walking Dead: Alien (2016). Barrier’s first issue consists of dual narratives, one of a borderland ranch owner in South Texas, the other of a migrant headed to the U.S. from Honduras.

This setting and concept is a personal one for me. Vaughan’s ranch owner lives in Pharr, Texas...which is where I got my first job out of college as a cops reporter for the local newspaper. I covered migrant deaths, Border Patrol, drug smugglers, crashes, coyotes, all of it.

While I have nitpicky issues with details (there are no Minute Men in the real Pharr, and a character references Marfa like its a neighbor, despite Marfa being 9 hours away), Vaughan and Martin depict a serviceable border, and anyway, creating a hyper-realistic Pharr isn’t the goal. The goal is a convincing borderland locale, and I got that.

Vaughan’s other narrative, the migrant traveling north, also rang true. The Spanish dialogue worked well for me. I have decent Spanish, so the decision to use it instead of bracketed-English lent the story authenticity, and for non-speakers, I suspect Martin and Vincente’s visuals provide sufficient clarity.

In fact, the imagery does much work throughout, showing us haggling with callous coyotes, a train named The Beast that pulls the diaspora north, and myriad other dangers Oscar faces en route. Vaughan obviously researched the dangers migrants face, and his collaborators illustrated his research well. I’ve seen this imagery often in documentaries, but rarely in visual fiction, and never in comics. The effect was a powerful one.

I was especially impressed with a sequence of wordless storytelling showing our heroes under the same sky, a sky that shrank as they approached one another. Observe:

Overall: Barrier #1 uses the widescreen webcomic format to great effect, and Vaughan’s incorporation of two languages creates a literal barrier between the book’s dual leads, serving its plot and its theme of separation. Based on Vaughan’s past work, Barrier seems poised to raise fascinating questions about the intersection of seemingly disparate worlds. 9/10

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at@zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

4 Things Jason Aaron Got Right About The Avengers

On Wednesday, Marvel Comics ushered in a new era for its flagship team book The Avengers, releasing a new No. 1 issue from writer Jason Aaron, artist Ed McGuinness, inker Mark Morales, and colorist David Curiel. The book built on plot points Aaron originally dropped in the massive Marvel Legacy one-shot last fall, and it marked the debut of this year’s new Marvel season, Fresh Start (although, no mention of Fresh Start was made by the book’s marketing, which I found interesting...).

Most importantly, however, this comic book was actually really very good. For real. The art team was cohesive and precise, giving the over-sized debut a polished feel, an almost high-budget aesthetic that seemed to declare this is THE Marvel book of the hour. What I found most engaging, however, was that Aaron’s plot and script seem to understand the enduring appeal of The Avengers in a way recent incarnations of the team have at times missed.

And that’s what we’re talking about here today. This book is not a throwback, not exactly—despite the traditional core of the team returning—but it does pay homage to some the most beloved and enduring aspects of The Avengers, without at all feeling dated in the process. Here are four of the major elements Aaron and the team simply get right about The Avengers... 

1. The Threat

The Avengers were formed originally because there was a threat that demanded they exist. In recent years, however, I think the concept has become a bit perfunctory, taking a wink-and-nod attitude that the team exists because the publisher, the fans, or whoever else expects/demands it. This book immediately gets away from that, establishing a convincing and compelling threat that spans millennia and brings our team together, even if some of them would rather not (more on that in a second).

This galvanizing threat is what made Avengers #1 work so well for me as a reader. I enjoyed Mark Waid’s preceding run on the franchise. I mean, he’s Mark Waid, and he just gets superheroes, but under Waid the book always seemed like an auxiliary title, rather than the publisher’s flagship, as that honor seemed to go to whatever event was beginning, middling, or ending (usually middling—boom, roasted!). In summation, Aaron’s run seems to be at the forefront of the publisher, giving it an exciting and dynamic sort of energy.

2. The Reluctance

Reluctance has been part of The Avengers DNA since the early years, when the original lineup minus Steve Rogers quit, leaving Cap to marshal a group that included Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and Scarlet Witch, all of whom were at that time villains. We get that reluctance here early and often, starting with a great buddy-buddy-buddy scene where Steve Rogers, Tony Stark and Thor Odinson meet in a bar for a beer, a shirley temple, and roughly three giant flagons of mead, respectively.

Just a few old friends, not wanting to be Avengers while having a drink at a bar called Aaron's.

Not only is this reluctance foundational to The Avengers, it is in many ways the heart of Marvel superheroes all together, the main thing separating them from DC, whose heroes mostly run, fly, or grapple-hook eagerly into battle. Marvel heroes by comparison are more real and more flawed, like all of us, and they don’t always rise immediately to the occasion, like all of us again, with, of course, a few exceptions—thinking here of Carol Danvers. Aaron gets that right throughout, and his debut issue of The Avengers is better for it.

3. The Relationships

All great teams have iconic relationships, be it the antagonistic banter between The Thing and Human Torch in Fantastic Four or the love story between Midnighter and Apollo in The Authority. I think it’s fair to say, however, that The Avengers have slightly more characters with special connections to their teammates, characters like Giant Man and The Wasp, or The Vision and Scarlet Witch, or Wonder Man and The Beast.

Right off in this debut issue, Aaron makes great use of existing bonds, specifically those between Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor, while also laying groundwork for some new ones. My favorite scene in this entire book was actually when T’Challa and Doctor Strange used their individual expertise together to investigate a shared concern. It’s a somewhat odd pairing, I suppose, but it yielded surprising chemistry. I’m really hoping for more of that kind of interaction.

4. The Rotation

My all-time favorite run on The Avengers was by Kurt Busiek and George Perez in the late ‘90s, and part of what I liked about it so much was the feeling that week-to-week the team’s roster was dynamic, that new members could be incoming and existing heroes could be on their way out of the mansion. Mark Waid did a bit of this in his run, although it really amounted to just one big splinter when the younger heroes departed to form The Champions.

Going into this book, however, Aaron has said in interviews that one slot on the team will be essentially reserved for a rotating member, and for this first arc that slot goes to Doctor Strange. I like that idea, although my hope is that the rotating concept is a wider one, not limited to a neat one-in, one-out setup that takes place like clockwork each time we start a new arc. I’d rather see roster churn happen organically (and maybe even surprisingly) as a result of our plot.

Plus, One Minor Complaint

So, I guess everyone—characters, writers, publisher, fans—is just fine now about the whole Hydra Steve business? I know this is comics and change is the only constant and HUGE events one month have little impact the next, but this man was seething with evil to the point he oversaw the destruction of a major American city, like as recently as last year, which is even shorter in comic book time.

Obviously, we have to get this behind us, and Secret Empire did the heavy narrative lifting after its climax to explain what happened and get us moving in a better direction. Plus, we got a brief and rehabilitative Captain America run from Waid and superstar artist Chris Samnee. Still, all I’m saying is a bit more of a grudge held by other heroes might feel cathartic for us all, regardless of what our feelings were toward Secret Empire as a concept. The good news is this is just one issue, and there’s still time to dive deeper into that idea, plus other dynamics. I know I, for one, am looking forward to Aaron unpacking the presumably large baggage between Tony and Carol following the second superhero Civil War.

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at@zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

Best Debut Comics of April 2018

April was another month that reminds us how lucky we are to be comic readers right now. As fans, we are often easily distracted from the high quality of the medium by shiny new movies, endless doom predictions about the direct market, and oddly-passionate debates about fictional characters’ genders and ethnicities.

Take that away, though, and look hard at the actual comics. You’ll find consistently rewarding stories each week, stories pushing boundaries of representation, nostalgia, form, execution—sometimes all at once. This month’s best debut comics are a nice encapsulation of that. There are major statements by a rising publisher, creators who’ve gotten recent attention through Big 2 work branching out, a little whimsy, and a whole lot of horror.

March was strong, powered by new creator-owned work from Jeff Lemire and Robert Kirkman, with Gideon Falls and Oblivion Song, respectively. April might lack that name power, but given the strength of this work, it seems like some of the creators below will hit A-List status soon.

Let’s do it!

Quick Hits

Black Hammer Age of Doom #1 by Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston is...disqualified. This book (one of my favorites) is more a tonal shift than a pure debut, picking up where predecessor—just Black Hammer—left off. While the previous run revelled in the nostalgia of superheroics, however, this one does horror. Fans of old school Vertigo, take note.

Curse of Brimstone #1 by Justin Jordan and Philip Tan and Immortal Men #1 by James Tynion IV, Jim Lee, and Scott Williams were books I wanted to like but didn’t. Curse of Brimstone spoke to me as a concept, dealing in the desperation plaguing impoverished corners of rural white America, but this debut felt like half an issue, rather than a complete artifact. Immortal Men, meanwhile, was just messy. That said, I’ll give both books another shot, as neither had flaws that were fatal.

Rising publisher Vault Comics has produced stellar work since launching in 2016, including Alien Bounty Hunter, Heathen, Spiritus, and Zojaqan, inspiring fans to spread word-of-mouth praise, aggressively. But April 2018 felt like the month Vault landed, making an emphatic statement with a 1-2 combo of sold out debuts, Deep Roots #1 by Dan Watters & Val Rodrigues and Wasted Space #1 by Michael Moreci & Hayden Sherman. In addition, films were announced for Heathen and Failsafe, with Michael B. Jordan attached. So yeah, pretty good month for Vault.

Best Debut Comics of April 2018

Crude #1 by Steve Orlando, Garry Brown, & Lee Loughridge

After Crude #1, I’m legitimately afraid of the emotional trials Orlando, Brown, and Loughridge have planned. Orlando is a precise and deliberate writer who really lives with his characters, be they costumed superheroes or, as in Crude, secretive Russian murder operatives. His dialogue and reactions are believable and deeply-felt, which for me as a reader engenders deep empathy.

Crude, meanwhile, is a book about violence and loss (and I’d assume eventually payback), wherein Orlando does his usual thing with the characters. This is always a nice touch on Big 2 books, not emotionally trying because we know things will mostly be okay. Crude, however, is Orlando and Brown’s unique vision, and provides us no such guarantee. Of course, I mean all that as a compliment. If Infinity War proved anything last weekend...SPOILER...it’s that we love watching our heroes suffer, we love being made to feel.

Dead Hand #1 by Kyle Higgins, Stephen Mooney, & Jordie Bellaire

Writer Kyle Higgins, though young, has been a writer to watch for sometime, with several of his notable works involving the character of Dick Grayson, most recently on the excellent Elseworlds series, Nightwing: The New Order. While he’s written creator-owned works in the past—checkout C.O.W.L. if you haven’t already—it’s pretty reasonable to expect that his ongoing work on DC has earned him a more prominent sort of buzz.   

Basically, I went into Dead Hand thinking that based on the creative team—Stephen Mooney and Jordie Bellaire are, obviously, pretty buzzworthy themselves—if this book was strong enough, it could grow into a big hit. Guess what? It was. This book practically crackles with mystery, action, and intrigue as it leads up to one of the best final page reveals in recent memory.

Exiles #1 by Saladin Ahmed, Javier Rodriguez, & Alvaro Lopez

I must admit, I had a hard time getting amped for a team with alternate versions of characters and also a cartoon Wolverine baby. Yet, I enjoyed Exiles #1 (and #2, also out in April), because of the execution by the creative team. There are wild tonal shifts in this book, sometimes from one panel to another, but the art team of Rodriguez and Lopez handle them deftly. See below:

Ahmed, meanwhile, is one of Marvel’s brightest newcomers after making an underdog Black Bolt solo book into must-read comics, and he’s doing great things again here. He gives this team a reason to exist (a compelling one at that—the multiverse is imperiled...again!), and commits. A problem I sometimes have with the Big 2 is too much winking at concepts and not enough taking threats seriously. Ahmed’s script goes all in here, and as a reader, it’s hard not to go along.

Skyward #1 by Joe Henderson, Lee Garbett, & Antonio Fabela

Skyward #1 is in many ways the ideal debut issue. It makes quick work of orienting us with our protagonist—dad, mom, daughter—and then it introduces its conceit—the gravity in the world disappears and many people float lethally into the ether, including the mom from our central family. This all goes down in the span of maybe six pages. We skip forward in time and there we are with our main character, the grown daughter.    

It’s quick yet emotionally moving. We then get down to world-building as our character goes about her day, leading up to a vital point in any good first issue...a killer cliffhanger. What I liked about Skyward was how light it felt (I could swear that pun wasn’t intended, but anyone who knows my writing won’t believe that), like an old school comic from a simpler time that anyone could pickup and enjoy.

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

ADVANCED REVIEW: Harbinger Wars 2 Prelude #1

For a story ostensibly about the world heading into a massive war, this comic sure did leave me feeling optimistic. I love a good (fictional) conflict as much as any fan of high-stakes narratives, but my optimism here bears a heavier connection to recent goings on at the publisher—Valiant Entertainment—than to this book itself. So, let’s dive into that before we consider to the BIG question of any review...is this comic good?

In January, Valiant was bought out by investors (learn more here). Almost immediately, its familiar leaders began to depart. This was bad. Last month, however, news broke that Joseph Illidge, a great veteran editor with an evident love of the medium, was taking the reins. This was good. I’d been looking at Harbinger Wars 2 as a last hurrah, but with Illidge coming in I now see it as an epic between eras, started under the old regime and shepherded into publication by the new. Thus, optimism.

Now for the review...while Harbinger Wars 2 Prelude #1 is inherently an intro for a big event, this book also feels like a triumphant ending to a story about growth started in Secret Weapons #1 last June, a story that has been expertly told by writer Eric Heisserer and primary collaborators Raul Allen and Patricia Martin (learn more here). Not to go too far into plot (a pet peeve of mine in reviews), but earlier Secret Weapons books detailed three main characters learning to understand/master powers, and this book shows them using said powers in cohesive and effective ways.

For those of us here from the start, it’s immensely satisfying to witness the end results of past struggles. There’s a lot that HAS TO get done plot-wise before Harbinger Wars 2, but this prelude is still character-driven on the strength of that groundwork laid in the past. Essentially, if you’ve enjoyed Secret Weapons, you’ll be at home here. But what If, conversely, this is your first exposure to the team? I think you’ll still grasp what’s happening—there’s some fine graphic storytelling and action to be found here.

Optimism wasn’t the only feeling coloring my reading of this book, though. There were also some pangs of regret. See, the initial concept for Harbinger Wars 2 was to use 48-page issues featuring two complete stories—one from Matt Kindt and Tomas Giorello, and another from Heisserer, Allen, and Martin about the Secret Weapons. That ambitious format, unfortunately, disappeared. That’s bad. Thus my regret. My hope, however, is the summer event still incorporates the Secret Weapons characters heavily into the plot. Even without Heisserer and co. doing the storytelling, the track they’ve laid in books like this one is too good to ignore.

Overall: While this issue doesn’t have as many of the high-minded page designs and narrative concepts that made the Secret Weapons mini and one-shots such a visual feast, it is still heavy on character. It’s an exciting and above-average event lead-in, but more than that it serves as a kind of a reward for any reader who has followed this crew dating back to its humble start. 7.9/10

Best Exchange

Government guy: “If you...step out that door...you’ll be...enemy of the state.”
Livewire: “Yeah, we were never friends.”

Just feel the pith in that dialogue.

Zack Quaintance is a journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

REVIEW: Avengers: Infinity War, a Movie that Defies Review

There is no easy way to review Avengers: Infinity War, because there has never been a movie quite like Avengers: Infinity War. Here we have a film that plays out narrative threads from 18 movies and 10 cinema franchises. It’s not a sequel, hell, it’s not even a season finale. It’s the culmination of a decade of disparate storytelling. It’s something new that we don’t have a word for yet. And how do you review a work of art without another comparable work of art to measure it against? That’s the conundrum.

But review we must, because we are results-driven as a culture and simply looking at Infinity War’s record-breaking domestic box office in its first weekend is unsatisfying. Money is one thing, vital for sustaining blockbusters of this magnitude, but it doesn’t answer a key question: is this movie actually good?

It’s certainly groundbreaking and unprecedented. There’s simply no denying that. You have to look to comic books to find something of comparable scale, and even then it’s a shoddy comparison because no comic book event has ever sprung from a continuity as clean and straightforward as this one.

This first panel comes from What to Get From the Man Who Takes Everything by Chris Hastings, Flaviano, & Federico Blee. This is the story of a regular guy who Thanos comes back to harass annually on his birthday. It's a funny panel, and I also like the imagery of Thanos in an office, where you know he would without question be that one co-worker who drums on his desk. 

It’s also a risky film (HERE COME SPOILERS!). The bad guy wins. He has to give up a cherished loved one—his only cherished loved one—but when the film ends he has everything he said he wanted. He heaves a sigh of contentment, and there’s nothing around to suggest it’s not a sincere one. Oh yeah, and half the heroes fade away and die. Now, if we’re being real, we know none that died in the fade out are going to stay dead. We have the advantages of knowing the source material and that the film was originally part one of two (more on that in a sec).

But the sheer volume of viewers who watch these movies certainly means there are thousands of fans who don’t know any of that, who simply know that many of their favorite characters faded away to ash. That’s risky, that’s bold, that’s downright innovative for a blockbuster film. So, with all that in mind, let’s get to my verdict…

Overall: Avengers: Infinity War is a new type of film I’m calling the uber blockbuster, the culmination of an expertly-played long game that has done so much right it’s easy to forgive anything done wrong. It’s a risky, bold, unprecedented, and groundbreaking film. For those of us along for the ride (and box office records for many of these films would suggest we are legion) it is indeed a very good film, one destined to influence both studio choices and fledgling filmmakers alike. 9.5/10

For more thoughts on the movie, you can hear me on the WMQ&A Podcast here!

Thanos Keeps Winning

This is, of course, a comics site first and foremost, so let’s cleanse our pallets after all that film talk with some good ol’ fashioned comics. Folks, I now present to you my favorite panels from last week’s Thanos Annual #1. I choose one from each of the six stories inside.

This panel is from My Little Thanks by Katie Cook and Heather Brickle, which is adorable but also one of the more interesting takes on what makes a villain tick. In this story, Thanos is put off by a race of little cuties who ascertain he enjoys maiming and death, so they pull out every stop to supplicate themselves and deliver that to him. The effect is...off putting. 

Panel numero tres here today is from That Time Thanos Helped an Old Lady Across the Street by Ryan North, Will Robson, & Rachelle Rosenberg. This story is a meditation on human potential, specifically on the way so much has to transpire for it to be fully released. It's a lesson Thanos teaches in a saccharine way. 

Kieron Gillen, Andre Arujo, & Chris O'Halloran's story Exhibition is basically a series of poems relating to the high concepts of various planets, every one of which ends prematurely when Thanos obliterates said plant. It's this ending panel of every planet exploding at once, however, that really delivers the crux of the story.

The Comfort of the Good by Al Ewing and Frazer Irving is the story I found the most disturbing from this bunch of uniformly disturbing stories. It has to do with religion and morality, and whether people only act decent to each other to reap an eventual reward. There were so many panels to choose from here, some of which showed characters beginning to weep as they realized the blissful afterlife they'd been promised would never come to pass. This silent panel of Thanos cracking a knowing grin, however, is easily the most sinister. 

And this last panel reunites the team from Thanos Wins, the best Marvel villain story in ages. It's Titan's Greatest Dad by Donny Cates, Geoff Shaw, & Antonio Fabela. This panel is from the back half of that story's two bookends, and I choose it because I'm looking forward to Cates forthcoming Cosmic Ghost Rider mini series and I think you should be too. 

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

Splitting the Marvel Cinematic Universe into Tiers

I rarely write about comic book movies, for a few reasons: 1. I think they're pretty self-explanatory and most conversations amount to either wouldn't THIS be cool?, or screw you, let's fight!; 2. I'm an old-before-my-years purist who prefers comics; and 3. I'm not as passionate about these movies as most other people tend to be, so I usually just sit back and let strong feelings have the room.

But Infinity War is HUGE. It's part one of what feels like a major shift for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (part two being Avengers 4), and so I'm using it as an excuse for a rare post about the MCU, wherein I organize this mosaic of stories into tiers.  Unless otherwise noted, these tiers have less to do with quality than with content. Also, I generally enjoy all comic adaptations, which feel to me like nice bonus supplements for my favorite print stories. 

Enough preambling, let's do this!

Next Generation Tier

I know I said the tiers weren't about quality, but this first one is. Sorry. These are my three favorite Marvel movies, and I've grouped them in a tier because they feel like the future of the MCU, a future in which a talented director (or directors) is given a movie and trusted to execute a vision.

This is especially true of Taika Waititi's Thor Ragnarok and Ryan Coogler's Black Panther. It's almost like Kevin Feige saw and loved What We Do in the Shadows and Creed, respectively, and invited the filmmakers to come do that in his universe. And they did. Civil War gets a nod because directors Joe and Anthony Russo juggle so many characters without losing control, much like they did as directors on Dan Harmon's all-time great TV sitcom, Community. 

Risky Tier

It's weird to think, but these movies all took risks that evolved the MCU. Guardians of the Galaxy didn't have mega-popular characters (or actors back then, not counting voices). In fact, there were comic fans who were only vaguely familiar with the team. But Marvel executed well and fans came. Winter Solider incorporated darker complex themes, even dismantling SHIELD. Again, fans came. But it was Spider-Man: Homecoming that was probably the most risky and consequential, proving properties adapted elsewhere could be re-done for the MCU. It ignored the origin, added modern touches, threw in an RDJ cameo, and glazed over that nasty business about Uncle Ben with jokes. And fans loved it. (I'm mixed, myself).

Watch-While-Altered Tier

I've never been one for drug culture, although I used to tip a few brews when I was younger (another story), but I couldn't help but think how impressive/funny they'd have been if I had done some chemical altering before watching these movies...Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 because of the colors, Ant-Man because haha look how small he is, and Doctor Strange because obviously.

Origin Tier

I should note Iron Man is my favorite of these. I remember walking out of the theater thinking, WHAT was that? It just felt so real. But I think Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, and Avengers are all solid at getting the job done in terms of introducing heroes and building a shared world. 

Skippable Tier

Listen, I know every one of these movies means a lot to someone, that's just how fandom works, and I'm not looking to criticize or attack. What I am saying with this tier is that if you were re-watching all of Marvel's movies, these are the four you could skip and probably still understand what's happening in the rest.

I should note, though, that if you do skip these, you should still watch the party scene in Age of Ultron, and also Google "Who are Vision and Scarlet Witch?" 

That's it for me. Enjoy Infinity War everyone. Depending on what I think about the movie, I may review it for you all here next week. 

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at@zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

April 2018 Indie Comics Grab Bag: Storytelling Tools

I recently listened to a podcast* featuring a conversation between Vault Comics Editor-in-chief Adrian Wassel and writer Michael Moreci, during which Wassel articulated several elusive points that have been on my mind after reading Scott McCloud and Will Eisner's books on comics.

Wassel believes we are in a cinematic age of comics, a time of big splashy panels and super quick reads that rely on visual action more than denisty, nuance, or complexity. This, Wassel also believes, has been a good thing, a way for a young medium (comics) to learn some new tools, but he also couldn’t help but wonder if there was progress to be made by utilizing a wider variety of techniques as well, such as more co-mingling of prose with those big panels.

Coincidentally, our featured indie books this month seem to hint at those multimodule possibilities that Wassel wondered about. Admittedly, I likely wouldn’t have drawn a connection if not for the podcast, but I'd still like to use that idea as a through-line here.

So, let's get on to it…

*That podcast, I believe, is exclusively available via signing up for Moreci’s newsletter here.

Isola #1 by Brandon Fletcher, Karl Kerschl, & Msassyk

Isola, make no mistake, is a beautifully-drawn comic book. Karl Kerschl’s line work is clean as it gets, and the tonal vibrancy of Msassyk’s colors make for an aesthetic akin to high-end animation. It's a prime example of the cinematic-style cited by Moreci and Wassel. See, Isola's story is a simple one: a protagonist leads a monarch tiger to a paradisaical place called Isola, and along the way there are tests, challenges, visions, hijinx.

Simply put, Isola takes little time to philosophize, or even to do much world-building. It’s an interesting choice for a fantasy comic, and I think we won’t entirely know if it pays off until we read future issues. The clues we get to a larger world come from clothes (high fantasy with perhaps a light touch of feudal Japan) and equipment (purely low-tech).

In these ways, Isola reminded me of the intro portion of an old-school RPG, wherein the player gets a feel for whether there’s magic, what kind of tech exists, and how the turn-based combat works, knowing that this portion will seem quaint later once the game opens up onto a sprawling world map. I hope a similarly larger scope is where Isola is headed.

Overall: Isola is a playground for artists Karl Kerschl and Msassyk, one that deftly introduces its protagonist, her goals, and the challenges she faces.

The Season of the Snake #1 by Josh Vann, Simone D'Armini, & Adrian Bloch

The Season of the Snake is one of the densest comics I’ve ever read, both in terms of its hyper-detailed artwork and its breadth of ideas. In many ways, it takes the exact opposite storytelling tact of Isola, bearing much more of a similarity to a novel than to a movie.

From The Season of the Snake #1.

Whereas Isola was content to wow and captivate readers with its visuals, Season of the Snake is novelestic in scope, stimulating more with questions it raises about nation states, evolution, diplomacy, and reverence than with artwork. That’s not to say Simone D’Armini’s artwork is bad here. No, it’s quite good, and it deftly compliments the dense script.

There is just so much to unpack in this 68-page, three-part series debut. I enjoyed the depth of thought behind this book, as well as some of the visual touches the creative team used to show rather than tell (high praise in college creative writing workshops), specifically a mysterious flier that poetically reads “True life is the thing that s-s-seeps,” which did great narrative work to foreshadow coming plot points. The use of Adrian Bloch’s vivid colors during the story’s grandest set pieces is also interesting, heightening the sense of reality and consequence at those times.

Overall: The Season of the Snake seems destined to develop a rabid cult following of hard sci-fans who kept bugs or lizards growing up. It starts slow but has a lot to offer those who invest in it.

Coronary #1 - #2 by Ryan Burke, Joel Saavedra, & Damian Penalba

Coronary (which has a week left on its Kickstarter, btw) sort of straddles the techniques of the two previous books on this list. It’s rich with quick panels, a la Isola, especially early in the first issue, where Ryan Burke’s script moves through the quietude of Joel Saavedra's artwork, expertly conveying feelings of pensiveness, yearning, and loneliness. Burke also has an ear for dialogue that he deploys well, and his use of a fictional magazine Q&A and a psychologist's scribbled notes at the end of the issues disperse additional exposition that brings our plot into focus.

What I found most intriguing about Coronary, though, was its use of transitions and juxtapositions. Going back to the idea we cribbed from Wassel about creators tapping more tools, Coronary takes advantage of the way that comics’ inherent sequential structuring forces readers to make their own connections in order to understand a story progresses. See below:

Notice the juxtaposition. These panels appear as a character begins to zone out on a train. While your own interpretation may vary, I understand them to mean that sex to him is as routine as reaching for an umbrella, that he objectifies and uses women as he might a tool to keep dry in the rain. It would take pages in a novel to convey this effectively, but Burke and Saavedra do it with the subtlety of four panels and ⅔ of a page. That's just one example; this book is rich with more.

Overall: I really liked both issues of Coronary, so much that after reading them (and writing this) I helped with this Kickstarter. I urge you to do the same.

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

ADVANCED REVIEW: Deep Roots #1 by Dan Watters, Val Rodrigues, & Triona Farrell

I think I just got deja vu. It’s early in the week, I’m looking at new books for Wednesday, and a Vault Comics title seems poised to be a major hit, one that will grab a sizable and smart audience. It’s the same feeling I had last week before Wasted Space #1 dropped, and that book went on to garner significant praise from comic critics.

As it turns out, though, I did not in fact just get deja vu. Vault actually does have another killer series loaded and ready for release. This time it’s Deep Roots #1, a book that, like Wasted Space, takes several huge ideas—here it’s eco terrorism, mankind’s abuse of the environment, capitalism, plus a little PTSD—and pairs it with a perfect aesthetic.

“To put it reductively Deep Roots is a genre-bending book with a dual storyline: one about a mythic realm of destiny and vegetation, another about a modern world in which said vegetation seems to be rising against humans that have paved and diminished it.”

And it’s that pairing of plotting and perfect aesthetic that most impressed me when I read Deep Roots. The art team is Val Rodrigues and colorist Triona Farrell, who work together to create a pair of distinctive aesthetics. To put it reductively Deep Roots is a genre-bending book with a dual storyline: one about a mythic realm of destiny and vegetation, another about a modern world in which said vegetation seems to be rising against humans that have paved and diminished it.

For the real world, Rodrigues and Farrell work is realistic, using a detailed style evocative of Frank Quitely, Jon Davis-Hunt, or Geoff Darrow. For the mythic, they create lush, abstract landscapes closer to Christian Ward or Mike del Mundo. The script passes through these two worlds often (and rightly) without giving readers the direct connection, trusting (rightly again) the artists to convey it. Basically, I was impressed throughout at how Deep Roots handled this, making the dual plot threads easy to differentiate yet never so disparate that transitions began to feel like non sequiturs.

So, yeah, the art is great, but what about the aforementioned script by Dan Watters? Well, his narration does an equally effective job of transversing the realms of our story, using a mythic dialect for the abstract bits but spare and direct sentences to ground us when we return to the real world.

A panel from Deep Roots #1 where the real world seeps into the mythical realm of the story.

There are utility sentences, like, “Meet Sal. Sal still has nightmares from the war in which bodies turn to red mist. He would do anything for a quiet life.” And there are poetic sentences where he gets his Cormac McCarthy on, like, “Sometimes he sees figures in the distance, and wonders if they are other walkers of the path—or if they are those he seeks, watching him walk his penance.”

Watters plotting—particularly the way in which it confidently handles the fate of its characters—is also bold, although to say much more would likely be a spoiler, or at least spoiler adjacent. I don’t want to go there. Just trust me when I tell you it works.

Last week, we told you Wasted Space #1 would be a hit, and it was, drawing an impressive buzz for an indie that dropped on the same day as the landmark Action Comics #1000. Wasted Space was a great book filled with killer frenetic dystopian panels and underlaid searingly-relevant ideas. Combine it with a rising publisher like Vault, and it became a hit. We foresee the same happening with Deep Roots.

Overall: Deep Roots #1 lays out a bold vision, one that grows (excuse the plant pun) from both the tight muscularity of its script and the beauty of its artwork. It’s a story of two worlds—man’s world and an ancient vegetative world beneath—and its art depicts each, as well as the places they intersect, with a gorgeous abandon. This is a rare and wonderful debut that gets the basics of pacing, world-building, and cliff-hanging right, while also leaving the reader with a sense of a wondrous plan in place for its continuation. 9.2/10

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

How to Write Comic Books: Tips From the Pros Part 4

Between now and Part 3 of this series, we got off Twitter (briefly) and read actual books about writing scripts for comics, books written by a murderer’s row of influential minds in the medium. As a result, this most recent entry in our compilation series of writing tips from pros features the mighty Brian Michael Bendis (Bendis is coming!!!!!) and Alan “Watchmen” Moore. Plus, also David Lynch, who hasn’t (to my knowledge) written comics but is an amazing film director and my personal artistic spirit animal.

Before we get to it though, I have to confess that my own work is suffering lately due to me failing to invest enough time in it. To that end, I’m going to start Tweeting a weekly tally of what I write, letting you all know how many pages I outlined, scripted, finished, etc., even if it’s all zeroes. I know myself well, and this sort of accountability and shame will without question move me to productivity.

I’ll report back on how it goes in Part 5 (coming soon, after I read more books). In the meantime, I hope you’ve found a productive lifestyle and an accountability system that works well for you!

Now, onward to the advice!

David Lynch: Have a setup.

It’s almost a cliche of writing advice, but it’s important to keep a notebook with you everywhere you go. I’ve heard this in journalism school, at creative writing workshops, and from countless authors of instructional guides. I recently read a book by my favorite director—the aforementioned David Lynch—called Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity, and there it was again.

Lynch writes:

“If you don’t have a setup, there are many times when you get the inspiration, the idea, but you have no tools, no place to put it together. And the idea just sits there and festers. Over time, it will go away. You didn’t fulfill it—that’s just heartache.”

To emphasize further, I’ll tell a quick story about Chris Claremont, the all-time great Uncanny X-Men writer I recently met at a comic con in Sacramento. While waiting at his table, I noticed that in the big vest Claremont wore, one pocket brimmed with tattered, oft-used notepads. Here’s a guy with nothing to prove, and he’s still practicing that old kinnard of writing advice. One must assume for a master like him, it’s simply become second nature. Us young’uns would do well to follow suit.

Brian Michael Bendis: Story outlines vs. pitch documents.

This book is not only useful, but it's so useful I couldn't bring myself to outline in it, opting instead to tab good passages with sticky notes.

Bendis’ book Words for Pictures is an extremely practical guide, especially for those who dream of getting to Marvel or DC. It’s brimming with advice about everything from communicating with artists to identifying the best editors for a pitch. But one thing I found particularly helpful at this early stage in my career (one full script written, one series outlined, one 8-page mini comic slowly taking shape) was this about the difference between outlines and pitch documents.

Here’s Bendis:

“A pitch document is a quick one or two paragraph document that describes the story or series the writer is trying to sell. A story outline is a somewhat more involved document that goes into more detail about story beats and character arcs. The difference between the two documents is detail.”

This may seem rote, but when you have an idea that’s so exciting you start to get nervous, it’s incredibly grounding to have it laid out so simply. And, perhaps most usefully, Bendis’ book gives several actual examples of both documents. My own takeaway after reading them all was that I should focus on my outline, which should then later inform my pitch when I’m ready. Maybe you’ll have your own process. Another lesson from Bendis is that creating comics is a multi-faceted endeavor with few hard rules but many available examples from those who have had success and want to be helpful.

Or, as the kids say, you do you...but read up on what the masters tell you first.

Alan Moore: God damn it, you've got to be kind.

Alan Moore and George Saunders are two of my favorite writers, but outwardly they share little in common. Moore is a bearded Englishman responsible for comics like the searing social commentary V for Vendetta and the seminal superhero deconstruction Watchmen, held by many as the best superhero story ever. Saunders, meanwhile, is from Chicago (like me!) and writes hilarious and heartbreaking short stories, inimitable bursts of speculative fiction about a ghost haunting a Civil War recreation, or a male stripper whose aunt rises from the dead to demand he start showing his gear at work for more money, and so on.

Saunders and Moore do, however, have something in common: they both insist a vital part of being a good writer is being a good human (I think this is also probably true of Bendis, who “is coming!!!!!” but is also massively convivial by all indications).

Observe this quote from Moore’s book, Writing for Comics:

“...if you want to be a truly great writer, it is perhaps worth remembering that even in this, it is more important to be a good human being than it is to be a good writer. The artists, writers, painters, musicians whose voices speak loudest to us across the centuries are those that turned out to have the most profound souls…”

This makes all kinds of sense. At the core, most stories aim to show growth, and how can one convincingly depict growth without at least striving to be a good human?

Let’s listen to Saunders advising the same in a 2013 commencement speech at Syracuse:

“Since, according to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving: Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now. There’s a confusion in each of us, a sickness, really: selfishness. But there’s also a cure. So be a good and proactive and even somewhat desperate patient on your own behalf…”

Or in the words of Kurt Vonnegut, another all-time favorite writer of mine, God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.

And hey, what’s the worst case scenario? If being kind doesn’t improve your writing, you’re still putting net positivity into the world, creating something wonderful, and I don’t know about you but creating something wonderful is what brings me to my keyboard in the first place.

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

REVIEW: Action Comics #1000 - The Stories Ranked

Forbidden Planet retailer-exclusive variant by Jock

Action Comics #1000 is a monster book, with a page for each of the 80 years Superman has existed. It features 11 stories and is perhaps best evaluated on the merits of its individual vignettes, rather than as a whole. So, let’s take a quick look at the good and bad, before doing a ranking of the stories that comprise this historic publication.

The Good: Action Comics #1000 is a trip through the past, present, and future of Superman, one that is ultimately a meditation on not just Superman/Clark Kent, but on why fans have read about powerful beings in capes for eight decades plus.

The Bad: Not enough Lois Lane. I didn’t count, but Mr. Mxyzptlk’s wife might have more lines in one vignette than Lois in 80 pages. Lois is a presence, certainly, but a story about the Lois-Clark relationship should be here. (I’ve talked about the importance of Lois before.)

10. The Game by Paul Levitz and Neal Adams

This story is strong and its art stronger (Neal Adams has been doing some great work again lately). That said, it’s one of two stories about Superman and Lex, and it’s the lesser of the two.

9. An Enemy Within by Marv Wolfman and Curt Swan

A decent story that inverts the usual relationship between people and Superman, this one examines how mankind inspires its Kryptonian protector. It’s pretty good, also standing as an homage to the character’s political history, taking aim at the teachers with guns nonsense, police violence, and individuals resisting nefarious manipulation. It’s a fine work, just not one of the more memorable in the book.

8. Actionland! by Paul Dini, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, and Trish Mulvihill

One of the book’s best-looking stories, this one is expertly handled by Paul Dini and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez. But a whole section for Mr. Mxyzptlk? He should be included, as one of Superman’s most interesting and oldest foes, but this is almost a story entirely about Mxyzptlk. The other pieces focused on specific places or characters (Luthor in The Fifth Season, Daily Planet in Five Minutes) still take a backseat to Superman, making this a bit confounding.

The Daily Planet is hardly The Daily Planet without Lois.

7. Five Minutes by Louise Simonson, Jerry Ordway, and Dave McCaig

I’m a writer at a trade magazine and my wife is a reporter with the LA Times. I should love this story of Superman being a powerful superhuman AND a heroic journalist. The problem, however, is it's a Daily Planet story without Lois. A Daily Planet story...without Lois. Freaking Bibbo gets in here and Lois does not. I liked it, though, especially this line:

Superheoring. Reporting. They’re not so different if you do them right.

But why not give the reporting heroics to Lois, a human who fearlessly does the job, often putting her life at risk?

6. The Fifth Season by Scott Snyder, Rafael Albuquerque, and Dave McCaig

The issue’s most complex story, this is a tale of Superman and Lex Luthor. Admittedly, I didn’t understand it well upon first reading. It’s not low-hanging fruit, but it’s classic Scott Snyder, rewarding those who invest effort to really digest and understand. This story deals with shades of gray, questions of results versus intentions, nurture versus nature, and, ultimately, whose road is harder: the human genius or the powerful alien striving to be altruistic. Basically, it's a perfect encapsulation of the dynamic between Superman and Lex.

5. From the City that has Everything by Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund

With quiet and consistent work, Dan Jurgens has over the years established himself as an all-time great Superman writer, and stories like this illustrate why. It expertly blends significant parts of Superman’s past and present—big galactic adventure, being a symbol of inspiration and hope, believing the best of mankind, newfound domesticity—to create a modern incarnation of the character that started superheroics 80 years ago. There’s even a touching panel here with the heroes of the DC universe thanking Supes for his influence. I’m excited for Bendis' run (more later), but I also want to thank Dan Jurgens for his service. His contributions to Superman are appreciated and will be missed.

4. The Car by Geoff Johns/Richard Donner, Olivier Coipel, and Alejandro Sanchez

In this story, Superman follows up his adventure from Action Comics #1 by finding Butch, the tough who drove the green car from the cover. The Coipel art and Sanchez colors are gorgeous, and the panels are laced with callbacks to history (a bird, a plane, a line about the trunks). It’s the best type of Superman story, in that our hero saves a troubled soul, makes the world better, and doesn’t throw a single punch. It’s a clever conceit, but better still, it suggests Superman’s real heroism is his ability to understand and inspire, not his fantastic powers.

3. Faster Than a Speeding Bullet by Brad Meltzer, John Cassaday, and Laura Martin

This story had my favorite panel in the entire book. Just look at this beauty:

Artwork by John Cassaday with colors by Laura Martin.

Its construction is stunning, but, moreover, it shows the enormity of Superman’s task, how even though he can fly and whatever else, he’s still a single man who can only be in one place. He is, by no means, omnipotent. It also has a wonderfully simple setup: an assailant shoots a woman in the head point-blank as Superman rushes to save her; with a powerful outcome: a little bravery by the woman gives Superman the slight help he needs to succeed. A funny joke about Batman, a touching dedication to Christopher Reeve, and we’re out. There’s an odd choice made, however, with the woman’s look, in that she bears a strong resemblance to Lois Lane. We also later find out her name is Lila. Still, this is a nigh-perfect story nonetheless.

2. Of Tomorrow by Tom King, Clay Mann, and Jordie Bellaire

Of Tomorrow was pretty good the first time I read it, but during my third read, I found myself near tears as I fully realized what it was about. Tom King is a master at poignant stories about family and superheroes, and this is one of his best. It’s essentially a man talking to himself after multiple lifetimes, contemplating his childhood, marriage, son, and the cause to which he dedicated his life, as close as a writer has come to capturing the human condition in five pages about a guy in a cape.

1. Never-ending Battle by Peter J. Tomasi, Patrick Gleason, and Alejandro Sanchez

Patrick Gleason's retailer-exclusive Newbury Comics variant.

Vandal Savage imprisons Superman by weaponizing hypertime, trapping him “in a fabric of yesterdays--a loop that never ends,” which sees our hero living out his past lives from the decades in which they were published. He powers down in the 30s, fights World War II in the ‘40s, is consumed with Silver Age goofiness thereafter, and so on. He's even fried and nearly destroyed in what is presumably the ‘80s, with a piece Gleason signs with a nod of the cap to Frank Miller, whose Dark Knight Returns deconstruction was an obvious inspiration here.

Superman fights Savage’s time manipulation onward, reaching the versions of himself that followed Death of Superman all the way through to Alex Ross’ and Mark Waid’s depiction of him aging in Kingdom Come. Not to spoil the exact nature of how Superman saves himself, but in the end we are given a comforting shot of him and his family as seen them Tomasi and Gleason’s now-concluded Superman run.

I loved everything about this section, from the villain (Savage is one of my favorites) to the logical exploration of the character and his past to the hopeful domestic note it ends on. Gleason’s art and Sanchez’s colors make for truly beautiful pages. If I could pull one story from this compilation and turn it into a fully-realized issue it would be this one.

Disqualified: The Truth by Brian Michael Bendis, Jim Lee, and Alex Sinclair.

I’m disqualifying this one because it has the unfair advantage of ending with “TO BE CONTINUED…” while the others are inherently self-contained. I will say, however, I’m more excited for Bendis’ run than ever after reading this. Bendis’ villain concept is fresh enough for an 80-year-old character/mythos, but where he really shines is in depicting average Metropolis folks reacting to Superman. Bendis has said he wants to make the city a realized and vital place, and he’s off to a good start. I can’t wait to see what he does with the Daily Planet.

Overall: I'd been looking forward to this celebration of Superman for months (if not longer) and this book did not disappoint. Today really felt like true observance of Superman and what he has meant to the world over the years. It was an anthology, so some stories were always going to be stronger than others, and I definitely wanted to see way more Lois Lane, but overall I'm glad I not only got to read this book, but be apart of comics fandom during its release. 9.5/10

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

How Thanos Won: A Look at Donny Cates’ Epic Run

Let’s talk about one of Marvel’s best comics in years—Thanos Wins by Donny Cates—and how it was an unlikely success.

The solicit for the first issue, #13, teased a story about what happens when Thanos wins, written by Donny Cates and drawn by Geoff Shaw, a duo that was rising, to be sure, but by no means household names with the Big 2 superhero crowd.

Essentially, Marvel had a somewhat untested creative team (strong indie work aside) taking over a book about a villain that was 12 issues into a run, teasing a plot about a future where everyone’s favorite heroes had been murdered, brutally.

Then the incredible happened.

The first issue sold out. The second issue sold out. Both issues went for second printings. A spinoff series was announced. Online buzz started. Copies started going for more than quadruple the cover price on eBay. Retailers said years from now the trade would be an evergreen seller, with casual fans coming off the street to find it.

Simply put, Thanos won.

And thank the divine comic book forces it did. Marvel needed the emergence of a writer like Cates. It had, after all, lost Brian Michael Bendis—its most influential voice of the past two decades—to rival DC. It needed a bold new voice to push its marquee superhero properties in bold new directions. Cates delivered and as a reward is now getting a summer event (Death of the Inhumans) and a forthcoming run on Venom. Basically, Thanos could mark the rise of Cates at Marvel, the start of a new era.

With this significance in mind, let’s look at some of the elements that propelled Cates, Shaw, colorist Antonio Fabela, and Marvel to such a massive W here.

Cates' Voice

The first thing that tickled my brain (ew) about Thanos was the way Cates writes with such a confident voice. Cates work has more narration than most, but his language is so compelling, one hardly notices.

His sentences are clear and accessible, yet often long, winding, and poetic, leading readers on quick journeys that tend to end with full-on outlandishness. Check out these examples:

“After all, when one is murdering every sentient being in the cosmos by hand...a lapse in perfect record-keeping can be forgiven.”

“The last titans stood over the body of a shattered angel in a church built for their greatest love.”

“And of course, this is how it ends. The last of the titans fighting for the hand of death at the dusk of time.”

“Each Thanos taking a combined eternity of pain and sorrow out on themselves. Dealing not in words or feelings, but in their shared language of blood.”

There’s real voice to Cates writing, and while the two couldn’t be more different, the untethered confidence in that voice actually reminds me of a young Brian Michael Bendis on Powers or Ultimate Spider-Man, like a writer talking directly to you, telling a story he just has to get out because it’s that good.

Each opening line in Thanos is well done, but look at #16’s:

“When he was a younger man, and not yet a cosmic-fueled engine of time-traveling murder, Frank Castle’s wife and children were shot to death before his eyes.”

I Tweeted about liking this line, and Donny Cates responded with, “Haha. Yeah I’m pretty happy with that nonsense.” That gets at another thing working well in Thanos: despite the dark story and violent happenings, you can tell Cates is living a dream and having a blast.

I mean, try to read this panel and not laugh with him. ‘Nuff said!

Death’s Mercurial Facial Expressions

Cates wasn’t the only one having fun, though. Shaw (whose artwork with Fabela really owned the grandiosity of Cates’ script) did an incredible amount of work with a few mercurial facial expressions once Thanos lady love, Death, finally showed up. Observe:

Now seems as good a time as any to point out that part of the reason this plot succeeds is because it focuses on the most compelling and relatable thing about Thanos—his core motivation is that he’s a passionate man who is deeply in love. But more about the story in the next section...

The Story Structure

Really, Thanos Wins sticks to a pretty classic Hero’s Journey, which gives it a stable framework within which to build all of that nonsense.

Take, for example, the first truly great panel, which comes early in the story's first part:

This is just expert comic storytelling, with a caption giving us a casual contrast to the violent domination Thanos has just wrought. But this is also still the exposition phase of our story, the time before the call to adventure where we’re in Thanos’ status quo, and what Cates’ establishes here is that normal life is one in which Thanos just *shrug* obliterates the Chitauri, a race so fearsome it was the villain in the first Avengers movie.

The rest of the book reads like a game of Cates one-upping himself from there. 

Marvel’s Commitment and Support

Thanos Wins is the most significant run at Marvel since Tom King’s 2015 Vision, and I’m drawing that connection to note one way that Marvel did not let history repeat. After Vision, DC swooped in and snapped King up. Marvel must have figured out what it had in Cates, because they signed him months before Thanos' first issue dropped.

And good on them.

Support like that is key to a story as big and seemingly limitless as Thanos Wins. In an endnote for the run's finale, Cates notes he was shocked that Marvel let him do the things in this book. He doesn’t mention this, but Marvel also supported Cates over Jim Starlin, the character’s creator.

See, Starlin was at work on a three-part graphic novel series that he said had a plot close to what Cates did here. No one has gone into detail, so it’s tough to know how much it truly overlapped, but what is known is that Starlin felt Marvel choose Cates’ work over his own, and he quit the publisher because of it.

We don’t know enough to say what Cates’ role (if any) was, and, really, I’m not sure it matters in the context of this conversation. As Oliver Sava noted in an AV Club piece early during Thanos Wins, “it’s all part of a bigger conversation about creator rights as superheroes continue their pop culture dominance.”

I think that’s true, and thus we'll save further examination until we can give the topic the space it deserves.

Thanos Wins

I’ll bring this home by noting Cates' work here is enough for me to buy his future Marvel books without hesitation. I’m also reading his creator-owned series Babyteeth and Redneck, and I'd place him in rarefied air with the aforementioned King and Jeff Lemire, whose work I also buy unconditionally.

What I find maybe the most interesting about Cates is he’s a pretty straight-forward storyteller, rarely toying with form or meta dialogue. He’s kind of a classic writer, in that his stories are driven hardest by character choices, with all plot growing from that. He seems to have an obsession with what drives people to violence that he’s dissecting in his work, and he’s not afraid to use an everyman voice in narration, or go the other way and sound like a poem. Call him the Cormac McCarthy of comics. Too much? Whatever. 

Anyway, I’m glad he landed at Marvel and I hope he stays. Marvel’s risk-friendly editorial team seems better suited for Cates’ sensibilities. I should, however, note he has so far shown himself expert at contained mini series with big endings, and is yet to drive a book long-term like Jason Aaron on Thor, or Bendis on Ultimate Spider-Man. If Cates' Twitter is to be believe (and it's not, he literally said he wasn’t doing Venom a day before it was announced he was doing Venom), plans are for Venom to run for many, many issues. I don’t care much for Venom as a character, but with Cates writing, I’m downright excited to check that book out.

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

The Reality of My First C2E2

So last week, once I checked into my hotel room for the Chicago con, I posted about my expectations for my first time attending C2E2 (you can find that here). I look back fondly at that post. I can honestly say that I got so much of that list right. This lets me know that a little preparation goes a long way. So, if you have read that post you’ll know that I can keep this one short, because I don’t have any real complaints about the convention. I only have a few additions to the positive ways to spend your time.

1.) Always be adaptable.

I showed up three and a half hours before the show floor opened on Friday to get a wrist band for the Jim Lee signing at the DC Booth. As you can imagine, that wasn’t early enough. Jim only had one hour to spend at the con, and those wrist bands went quickly for those who ignored their need to sleep. While meeting Jim Lee was priority numero uno on my list of con accomplishments, I wasn’t distraught at the inability to shake his hand and get my two most prized books of his signed. I realized that the show was full of creators with plenty of incredible opportunities still available. After all, the show wasn’t even 20 minutes in and I wasn’t going to be destroyed.

Fortunately, even though I made the trip to Chicago all alone, I made friends in line. When you show up before 7 a.m., and the show doesn’t open until 10, you’ve got plenty of time to get comfortable in line. While waiting I couldn’t help but notice the witty banter of some gentlemen standing next to me. As it turns out, they were super cool (of course) and we soon engaged in a friendly, yet spirited debate, about the merits of the latest Star Wars movie. This debate grew to include not only our immediate threesome and enveloped two others near us. You’re probably wondering why you should care that I am a social butterfly. Well, once the show floor opened, these gentlemen made a straight line to the CGC booth. I myself don’t worry too much about getting my books graded, but these guys made me laugh and a strange bond was formed. Well, I think fate was at work. It turns out that at the CGC booth was a private signing available for Jim Lee. We were the first in line and were able to get the books we brought submitted to have Jim sign them. While we missed out on the chance to shake the DC Comics co-publisher’s hand, we still got to get our books signed and graded (for a fee, of course).  So, the moral of that overlong parable is that when you make friends and your carefully pre-planned schedule goes awry, be open to change. I got to get my books signed and make great friends (more on that later) because I was open to change.

2. That big plan you had? Keep it, it will serve you well, but be ready to add to it.

I had the fortunate opportunity to get my books signed by Brian Michael Bendis at a signing time slot that I only found because I was looking for the Mark Millar signing (which I had a ticket to attend). It was perfect, yet it took two hours away from the con plan that I had in my head (and on my printed schedule and C2E2 app). Believe me, it was worth it to meet the guy who has been responsible for almost the last twenty years of Marvel lore. Yet, that experience brings me back to one of the things I warned about in my previous post.

3. Pack light. You don’t need to bring your entire comic collection.

I was in a line for Brian Michael Bendis that did not move for almost 45 minutes. The talent showed up 15 minutes early, and yet the line slugged for what felt like infinity. When the first signee went walking down the line (with a thick stack of books that went from his waist to his head) we line dwellers all realized he was the inconsiderate fan who was only concerned with himself. Look, I won’t shame a fan for wanting to have an incredible moment with one of their favorite creators. I will, however, shame the hell out of a person looking to hawk books on eBay. When you attend a con with a bunch of creators and an exponential amount of fans, think about someone besides yourself. I don’t mean you shouldn’t ask for a selfie moment, but I do mean to avoid getting every single comic you own signed. Don’t overly consume the limited amount of time each creator has available for signing. We all have spent a decent amount of money to attend the con. Just be aware and…

4. Be cool and get ready to make amazing friends.

I can’t even tell you how far being a decent human being goes at a con or just in general. A solid rule of thumb in life is to be a good person. I won’t get specific, but being a nice guy got me into a few different lines that I initially didn’t have access to attend. So, at the end of the day talking to fellow fans, or people working the con, and being genuinely cool will open doors that you wouldn’t have been able to enjoy beforehand. I got signatures and met just the coolest creators by being just a nice dude.

Whether you attend a super helpful panel or make the most of the hours you spend in line, you’re going to meet some incredible like-minded individuals. I cannot express enough how awesome Kyle Higgins, Gene Ha, Jim Zub, or Michael Moreci were. They were all involved in panels and stayed afterwards to offer some of their knowledge and experience. That kind of information is invaluable to an aspiring creator.

5. Don’t just hang out at the big three booths.

I know what it’s like to want to spend your whole con experience at the booths of the companies you know. It’s tough to expand your horizons but look for the smaller publishers with booth space on the con floor. I was very happy to speak with the editors and publishers of smaller companies who were willing (and able) to chat with me. That is a great way to start your journey into the industry. Pleading with DC, Marvel, and Image for a book is silly. You’re not going to pitch your way into a major company at a con. You may, however, be able to network your way into the opportunity to pitch with a smaller publisher. That being said, be cool. You still need to be a decent human being to seal that deal.

6. Remember to be in the moment and enjoy the experience.

I made great friends and enjoyed meeting creators while I was at C2E2. I will be an annual attendee for the foreseeable future, because the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo was good to me. I avoided the Con Crud (thank you Emergen-C), and I managed to make friends and connections whilst satisfying my fandom. What more could you ask of a convention?

Brandon Evans is a freelance writer and comic book lover from St. Louis, MO. He is currently working to find his way into the comic book industry. You can find him on Twitter as @writingbrandon

Bendis is coming!

Top Comics of March 2018

March was heavy on great new series like Gideon Falls, Oblivion Song, Eternity Girl, etc., but it was also a solid month for long-running books, too. Just look at Saga #50. As I’m fond of mentioning, I believe we’re in a new golden age of comics, and Saga is leading the way. Now, Saga is easy to take for granted, having been so good for so long, but it’s a real treasure, one we comic fans can and should use to indoctrinate new readers to our favorite hobby (I recently bought the full set of trades for my wife and she loved it). Anyway, my point is that it’s a good month when a book like Saga finishes #3 on our list, not by any fault of its own but because the competition was that strong.

Onward!

Close Calls

I’ve liked all DC’s Earth One books, but Green Lantern: Earth One by Corinna Bechko & Gabriel Hardman stands out. It stars a flawed Hal Jordan who’s more compelling than his main universe counterpart in a layered sci-fi epic. I’ll just be over here anxiously awaiting part II…

...Donny Cates roll continues. Redneck #11 by him, Lisandro Estherren, & Dee Cunniffee is the latest installment in this masterclass on building sympathetic characters and putting them through a hell of their own design. Over at Marvel, Thanos #17 by Cates, Geoff Shaw, & Antonio Fabela is yet another chapter of pure undistilled grandiosity, dark as it is awesome...

...Speaking of undistilled grandiosity (whatever that means), Dark Nights Metal #6 by Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, & Jonathan Glapion was a great finale for my favorite Big 2 event in some time. Epic and engaging, Metal broke some (literal) barriers for the DC Universe, paving the way for big books of the future, big books like May’s No Justice...

...As for the other new DC books—the New Age of DC Heroes—I’m liking them. Yeah, the artists bailed after three issues, they don’t have much to do with Metal, some concepts are ripped straight off Marvel, etc., but The Terrifics, Silencer, Sideways, and even Damage are still good comics...

...Right now, family dynamics projected on comic book-y plots is hot as Hansel (thanks Tom King), and one great example of this is Assassinistas by Tini Howard and Gilbert Hernandez on Shelly Bond’s Black Crown imprint at IDW. Also on that imprint is Punks Not Dead by David Barnett & Martin Simmonds, which stars Sid Vicious’ ghost and a dopey high school kid. Where oh where was this when I was in my Bad Religion/blue hair phase at 16?...

...Finally, the toughest book to leave off the top was Descender #28 by Jeff Lemire & Dustin Nguyen. Now that the full existential stakes of this story are coming into focus, holy cow is it tickling my brain bulbs (is that a thing? also, gross).

Top Comics of March 2018

5. Secret Weapons: Owens Story #0 by Eric Heisserer, Raul Allen, & Patricia Martin

This is one impressive book from a craft perspective, especially in terms of structure. The titular Owen is a Psiot who manifests seemingly-random objects, and his story here consists of vignettes based on objects he’s selling at a yard sale, objects he manifested, objects with stories telling us more about our characters. The concept is risky, but Heisserer and his collaborators execute it well, creating the type of book that reminds you why having an upstart, third superhero publisher like Valiant benefits the industry.

4. Green Arrow #38 by Benjamin Percy & Juan Ferreyra

What can I say that I haven’t already in my paean for Benjamin Percy, Juan Ferreyra, and Otto Schmidt’s now-ended run on Green Arrow? I think it’s an all-timer. This last issue was a fitting end for it, and it will be dearly, dearly missed.

3. Saga #50 by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples

Saga #50 is yet another nigh-perfect chapter in the best serial narrative happening in any medium. This issue opens with a full-page panel liable to cause death-by-blushing, then pushes forward from there. Saga goes to some wildly imaginable visual places while staying always focused on the heart of its story: a family on the run.

Its concept has evolved little, which is great; it hasn’t needed to. Vaughan just keeps hitting bittersweet, heartbreakingly true character moments with his scripts, while Staples draws the best concept designs of any comic in decades. This book is a sublime pleasure.

2. Mister Miracle #7 by Tom King & Mitch Gerads

And what can I say about this issue that wasn’t already said by Brandon Evans, who wrote an excellent meditation on the family dynamics at play in this issue and the rest of Mister Miracle. This issue saw our main characters having a child, during a birth process steeped in references to Jack Kirby’s Fourth World books that gave us Big Barda and Scott Free, as well as some clues to the dense puzzle the creative team here continues to weave. I suspect there is an unreliable narrator at work here, and I love it. This book seems destined to be a modern classic.

1. Abbott #3 by Saladin Ahmed, Sami Kivela, & Jason Wordie

The first two issues of Abbott felt special, comparable to Vertigo during its ‘90s heyday. Like many of the books from that line, Abbott takes us to places—both tangible and thematic—that comics are largely yet to go. The protagonist is a woman of color, the setting is Detroit, the time is the 1970s, and all of that is as well-wrought and gritty as one would expect. Writer Saladin Ahmed is a Detroit-area resident, and it shows in how there are brief tidbits about neighborhood and business closures that one could likely only know by being part of the fabric of the community.

So, yes, the first two issues of Abbott established it as a very good book. This third issue, though, absolutely blew me away. The creative team on this book has just gelled so well, with all of their various skill sets forging seamlessly together. Ahmed and artist Sami Kivela’s contributions are obvious via the excellent plot/script and artwork in evidence. Colorist Jason Wordie is also an invaluable part of the team, with his work giving Abbott a 1970s noir aesthetic that feels both new and familiar. Kivela’s aforementioned artwork is sharp, but also frightening and hazy when the supernatural nature of the story calls for it.

I also want to note the story work being done by the page design. I’m always unclear on exactly who does this, but the panel layout here is absolutely stellar. Just look at how the design and layout below function to bring out the drama in our story, even during something as visually pedestrian as a phone call...

I could go on, but the point is that this is a must-read book, one of the best on the stands right now, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this currently-five-part series ends up turning into an ongoing, should the creators involved be down. I know that sounds like wishful thinking and it is, but Boom! Studios has done it before (see Giant Days and Mech Cadet Yu), so there is precedent. Anyway, here's some more awesome Abbott art to go out on...

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

REVIEW: Justice League of America #28 by Steve Orlando and Hugo Petrus

Justice League of America #28 by Steve Orlando (w) and Hugo Petrus (a).

After the previous issue of Justice League of America setup Chronos as one of the most dastardly villains in the DC Universe, this one went ahead and solidified his terror. What really did the trick for me wasn’t Chronos’ typical villain dialogue, which was well done and included both taunting the heroes and telling henchmen to shut up. It also wasn’t the way Chronos took the fight to the JLA via a literal army of sycophants from throughout history (a classic move used often at Marvel by Kang the Conqueror). What made Chronos so compelling to me was the triviality of his motives. He seemed to embrace and own his status as a straight up bad guy (a fitting motif given our current political climate but that’s another discussion…).

As I noted in my review of issue #27, Steve Orlando is a writer who really lives in the heads of characters he writes, giving his books a more well-rounded feel than most, a sense that even small lines and brief actions matter, even if it’s just to create a more robust picture of what’s happening in this world with these people. There have been signs that Chronos was a petty man from the start, that his motives were entirely vindictive, and that he was messing with the God of superheroes, Ahls, simply to humble the League and take them down a notch for being altruistic, which has been a recurring motif in this run.

By the end of this issue, Chronos all but confirms as much, with Ryan Choi subsequently noting that Chronos had started as a petty thief, a dim man with a chip on his shoulder for being degraded by the superior intellects of first Ray Palmer and now Choi. This is all very much in keeping with behavior we’ve seen from Chronos, and it’s yet another example of what I’ve often said about Orlando’s JLA: it’s a well-wrought and complex run that rewards readers for investing deep levels of focus and attention.

Another thing I’ve really enjoyed about this current arc is that it leans in to being a story of superheroes. Orlando is also a writer with real passion for the tradition of his work, often taking close consideration of continuity when scripting character interactions. This passion shows in the lack of cutesy winking found in JLA. This is a book that takes story very seriously, and, as a reader, it’s hard to not follow suit. Of the talented artists Orlando has worked with throughout this run, Hugo Petrus’ work best embraces this total buyin. There are some truly fantastic superhero panels here, including one of a battle in which Black Canary lunges from the foreground at a foe, giving us a glimpse at an immense and impressive depth of field.

Overall: Justice League of America #28 is the penultimate issue of a book that has been a real treat, and I’m sad that things have to end. Not many of the characters from this team have been teased as part of the League moving forward, with the exceptions being Batman (of course) and Lobo, who is at least involved with No Justice. Still, getting nearly 30 issues with this eclectic and disparate group has been a treat, and issues like this illustrate why. 8.8/10

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

A C2E2 Newbie Plans for the Massive Con

I’m sitting in traffic in Chicago. Apparently, it’s a mistake to be on the highway at this time of day, but my flight was delayed. Nothing like flying two states west when trying to go one state east. The Uber driver tells me we should take side streets. I oblige, he is friendly enough, but I’m eager to get to my hotel room to begin finalizing my attack plans for C2E2. For those who don’t know, C2E2 is the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo, an annual event where people from all over flock to the Midwest in a comic book and pop culture-induced frenzy. This is my first time attending, and I’ve been plotting for months how to get the most out of my time.

I’ve been to comic conventions in St. Louis, but this is my first large out-of-town convention. I have a few reasons for attending. Chiefly, I’m a massive comic book fan. So, being able to meet a plethora of creators is irresistible, and the celebrity appearances are pretty neat, too. But, if I’m being honest, the main reason I’m here is to network. My end goal is to find work, as a writer, in the comic book industry. As far as reaching out to make those connections, there is simply no better place to start than a con. So, after my Uber ride I head to the hotel bar and start typing away, plotting my plan of attack for the show. I’ve spent a decent amount of money getting here, as I’m sure other attendees have, and I’m trying to maximize my success. Below I’ve listed the key parts of my plan so far.

1.) Plan…plan like you’re trying to overthrow the world

C2E2 is just massive. I mean truly, for a first-time attendee, the programming has been almost overwhelming to just read, and trying to meld that information into a mental visualization has been, well, let’s just say staggering. So, I’m approaching the situation with the C2E2 app. It has super useful information and it’s constantly updating. I even used it to create an in-app schedule for which creators are signing at what times, which panels occur when and where, and what photo ops are going on. Both the app and website also have printable floor maps. Those have really helped me formulate a good game plan to find artist’s alley, the DC and Marvel booths, and the panels. They also have really useful things like coat check, check-in for badges, and even a quiet room to chill and decompress during a show.

2.) And then plan some more

Most creators are apt to post their signing and appearance schedules on social media. These are really helpful in setting up a timeline for maximizing your fan time at the con. I’ve used Sean Gordon Murphy, Mark Millar, and several others to efficiently plot a course through the show floor map.

3.) Pack light

Of course, this sounds super obvious, but by pack light what I really mean is bring luggage—that’s basically empty—for the swag you purchase at the con. Nothing says “I didn’t really plan for this” more than trying to shove super sweet lithographs and original art into your carry on. Also, and this is truly where I struggled, don’t bring all of your comic collection with you to get signed. I know this is counter intuitive to the core of fandom. I spent an entire week, with stacks of my super sweet comic collection spread out on the floor around me, agonizing which books I could bring with me and which books had to languish behind. I’ve got so many books by Brian Michael Bendis and Tom King, yet I tried to keep in mind that C2E2 had 80,000 attendees last year. Yes, you want to meet your favorite creators. Yes, you want to get your books signed. But you also want to keep the creators and other fans in mind and be considerate. Most lines have a max of items you can get signed. Remember, you are just one of myriad awesome fans that want to have a personal encounter with a writer/artist/celebrity/editor/colorist/letterer/cosplayer/etc. Be mindful of the time and excitement of your fellow fan.

4.) Assume the worst and the prepare for it

I’ve learned from following the social media feeds of various creators that there is this thing called comic con gunk. Basically, if you go to a mass event, you expose yourself to massive possible instances of contamination. Accordingly, I’ve been drinking an Emergn-C daily before each leg of the convention. I’ve got too much to do to come down with a debilitating affliction during or after the convention. So, when you see folks preparing for the zombie apocalypse, don’t shrug them off. Just preemptively medicate.

5.) Have goals

This also seems obvious, but take a moment to think about why you’re attending. You’ve no doubt spent a decent amount of money to be here. Why? Is it to meet the creators or celebrities who bring your favorite characters to life? Are you here to showcase your killer cosplay outfit? Or are you here to network and try to meet people to sell you ideas to? Maybe it’s a bit of all or the above? Just remember, you’ve only got so much time at C2E2. There are a lot of panels focusing on important topics, as well as phenomenal cosplay tips. Know what you’re here for. Don’t get caught up in fandom if your goal is to find editors to pitch ideas. Again, if you’re here to solely get books signed, that’s great. If you’re here to meet potential prospects, that’s also great. Just be careful with your time. If you play your cards right, you can be a fan and a potential creator. Just do it properly.

6.) Have fun

Going to a con can be overwhelming. Just remember, at the end of the day, you’re here to have a good time. Don’t get bogged down with ideas of what you should be doing. Have fun. Go meet other like-minded individuals. Get books signed, get commissions done, and grab a photo with your favorite actor. At the end of the day this whole thing is about enjoying fandom. So, do that. Don’t let some silly list dictate what you’re going to do. Enjoy yourself, plan your con, and make some memories.

I’m posting this, but I will post a pre C2E2 post as well. I just want to share what my expectations were vs. the reality. Have a great weekend. See ya guys on Monday!

Brandon Evans is a freelance writer and comic book lover from St. Louis, MO. He is currently working to find his way into the comic book industry. You can find him on Twitter as @writingbrandon

Best Debut Comics of March 2018

There’s a special feeling at comic shops on Wednesdays when two HUGE books drop, an awareness that not only are we getting great comics, but we’re getting something else we love too: an easy Book A vs. Book B debate. In general, these types of big books are usually event stories starring flagship characters from the Big 2. In general, but not always.

Let’s look at this March, during which we got two major books on one Wednesday that were both creator-owned titles by industry titans: Robert Kirkman (Walking Dead, Invincible) and Jeff Lemire (insert 20 titles here). I read and loved both Kirkman’s Oblivion Song and Lemire’s Gideon Falls and think that years from now we’ll look at March 7, 2018, awed that two titles like this launched on the very same day.

And you know what? I have no desire whatsoever to pit them against each other. Now, maybe this means I’ve evolved as a fan (unlikely), or (more likely) maybe it means there are so many high quality books lately that asserting an aggressive preference gets too tiresome, too quickly. For I am a simple man and have not come to the Internet to debate.

I have, however, come to tell you about the best debut comics for March 2018. Let’s do it!

Eternity Girl #1 of 6 by Magdalene Visaggio & Sonny Liew

Our first list falls into what I’m starting to think of as DC’s burgeoning prestige sadness category, which as of now contains basically just Eternity Girl and Mister Miracle. Magdalene Visaggio’s Eternity Girl is an eclectic book thematically, one that raises questions about suicide, disassociation from life, post-traumatic stress, malleable identities, and the always-elusive proper role one plays in the world. You can see why I’d draw a comparison to Tom King’s industry-shaking Mister Miracle. In other words, this is indeed an intriguing book. One last thing it shares in common with Mister Miracle is incredible art, this time courtesy of Sonny Liew. Have you seen some of these upcoming covers? So awesome it’s crazy, or it makes me feel a little crazy, hard to parse which is the case.

Gideon Falls #1 by Jeff Lemire, Andrea Sorrentino, & Dave Stewart

In January I got a copy of this for advanced review, so I’ve already heaped mounds of praise on Gideon Falls. With that in mind, I’ll just quickly recap now why I loved the latest collaboration between Jeff Lemire, Andrea Sorrentino, and Dave Stewart so much.

As I said in January, this is a book deserving of a large and devoted audience, and given the star power of its creators, it will likely find it. The intrigue of the storytelling will ultimately make Gideon Falls one to follow for the long haul. It’s got influences of David Lynch, filtered through Jeff Lemire’s increasingly sharp sensibilities, and comics don’t get much better than that.

Infinity 8 #1 by Lewis Trondheim, Zep, & Dominique Bertail

Infinity 8 #1

This is such a polished and strong debut, one that offers a clear character with compelling desires from its start, those desires here being a deep longing to reproduce. Dominique Bertail’s art is stylish and imaginative, idealizing the human form and going wild when alien designs or space debris call for it. Overall, Infinity 8 is a story conceptualized to be three arcs of three issues, plotted and directed by French creatives Lewis Trondheim and Olivier Vatine. Based on entertaining I found this one issue, I’m in for the duration.

 

 

Oblivion Song #1 by Robert Kirkman & Lorenzo De Felici

I am admittedly a Robert Kirkman fan. While I don’t watch The Walking Dead television show (and haven’t since back in season 2), I am a fan of The Walking Dead comic. I’m an even bigger fan of the recently concluded independent superhero book Invincible, and a slightly less enthusiastic fan of the ongoing Outcast by Kirkman and Azaceta, which, make no mistake, I also think is quite good.

All of that is a lengthy preamble to saying Oblivion Song is Kirkman’s best debut yet. I recently The Walking Dead #1, and most of the flack Kirkman has gotten for his early simplicity of concept and wonky dialogue isn’t misplaced, not entirely. These are issues. They are, however, not issues in his newest book, which has a layer of complexity his previous works have lacked. Word also has it that the creative team here is two years ahead. All of which seems to indicate that Kirkman is still learning and still very much excited about telling graphic stories. Very cool.

Oblivion Song #1

Shadowman #1 by Andy Diggle, Stephen Segovia, & Ulises Arreola

Valiant Comics is in a state of flux. It was recently bought in full by Chinese investors. Most the senior staff that us comic folks know and love are gone (Dinesh!), and word has it the new directive is increased focused on Valiant films. Blerg.

This is all very concerning for Valiant Comics fans, and while it may be time to worry, books like Shadowman #1 show that it’s not quite time to straight panic. It was so good to see Jack again in this book, and while this may not be entirely accessible to virgin Shadowman readers, I think Andy Diggle’s script does enough to orient while also setting up compelling questions one can only assume the coming issues will answer.

Vampironica #1 by Greg and Megan Smallwood

Veronica Lodge is a vampire, that’s the simple concept here, but what makes this book worthy of a spot among the best debut comics of March 2018 is not the concept but rather the execution. Greg Smallwood is a superstar, and his talents are especially evident when applied to the occult (see his recent Moon Knight run with Jeff Lemire). So, Vampironica is a fast and pretty read, and while I hate to use the word fun to describe a comic—so vague and reductive—that’s exactly what this series looks to be, fun and blood-soaked and cheesy and escapist and...why not?

See last month's best debuts!

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

Best Action Comics #1000 Variants (and Why We Love Them)

The first major comic I read as a kid was Superman #75. This isn’t unique to me. Released on November 18th, 1992, that book was the culmination of the Death of Superman, in which Supes and beastly kill machine Doomsday perished at each other’s hands. I was 9 and not exactly an active participant in our economy, so I had to read a copy belonging to a friend’s older brother in the basement of their house. I can still smell must mingling with that glorious new comic aroma.

It was formative. I loved Superman almost as much as I did my parents (again, I was 9). Every page in the book was a single panel; this was something special, something epic and grandiose. There had even been stories on the news—TV and print—about the gravitas of it all. Basically, it felt like we’d never see a comic so huge again, and I’d argue that we haven’t.

You can make a case for other books in the past 25 years being more influential or important, but it’s hard to argue another comic has garnered as much attention upon release as Superman #75—until now. Enter Action Comics #1000.

Landing on April 18, 2018, just shy of 80 years since the landmark Action Comics #1 launched the superhero concept, this book will celebrate all things Superman, and, in many ways, all Superman has given rise to, including superheros, shared universes, accessible science fiction, and so many allegories about hope. To mark the occasion DC has tapped a veritable army (or at least a squad) of the best artists in comics to do variant covers.

A cynical view is that DC is simply milking this achievement for every last dime, and, for sure, these variants are a sure fire way to bank. The more optimistic take, however, and the one more fitting for Superman, is that each of these artists had a moment like I did when I was 9, a moment blending an intense love of the character with a sense that his adventures were meaningful, and that these variants each represent that feeling, that formative bit of our histories put to paper.

Anyway, there’s no denying these covers look great, which is why today we’re taking a look at some of our favorites, and sharing a few thoughts about what makes them special.

Behold! In no particular order our favorite Action Comics #1000 variants:

Newbury Comics Variant by Patrick Gleason

One of the best parts of DC’s Rebirth publishing initiative (which is essentially ending with Action Comics #1000, but that’s a whole other story…) was how it revitalized Superman by putting his wife Lois and son Jon back into his life. Patrick Gleason, the artist responsible for this cover, was vital to that run, which he commemorates beautifully here, depicting Superman, Lois Lane, Jon, Krypto, and the flag of the good ol’ U.S. of A.

Newbury Comics retailer exclusive variant by Patrick Gleason.

1960s Variant by Michael Allred

Of course Michael Allred (one of my favorite artists in comics) did the 1960s variant, of course he did. His kitschy pop art aesthetic is a perfect fit for Silver Age Superman, from the beefy stature, to the colorful details, to the spiderweb of panels showing the most beloved and maligned of 60s Superman tales (Lori Lemaris!). I wasn’t a big fan of the other cartoony Action #1000 variants, largely because of my firm belief that this one is absolutely perfect.

1960s decade variant by Michael Allred.

Kings Comics Sydney Variant by Nicola Scott

One idea permeating Action Comics #1000 is that Superman is character with strong core values, but also one that remains malleable to best fit the present decade. You can really see subtle ways he’s changed from decade to decade here, be it through his hair, logo, facial structure, and, yes, The Trunks. Superman is also a character built on hope, and the Superman in the forefront of Scott’s wonderful piece looks more hopeful than any of his predecessors, as if he has learned from recent mistakes of the past (ahem, no trunks), and is still determined to make tomorrow better. That’s a thought that gives me goosebumps.

Kings Comics Retailer Variant by Nicola Scott

1980s Variant by Joshua Middleton

This cover really lives in the decade it depicts (look at Lois’ blouse, hair, makeup!), with an aesthetic best described as Deathly Sincere 80s Adventure Movie Poster. It also, however, has a timelessness to it. See the facial expressions that perfectly capture the essences of Superman (determined and brave, charging off toward peril), Jimmy (wow!), and Lois (confident and ready, pen poised). Oh, and then there’s Luthor speeding across the frame while a terrifying visage of Braniac looms high above all. Wonderful.

1980s decade variant by Joshua Middleton.

Third Eye Comics Variant by Kaare Andrews

Okay okay, so I said these were in no particular order, but I have to admit this cover is my top choice. Besides from just being straight-up gorgeous, it speaks to one of my favorite things in all of comics: the Superman-Lois Lane relationship. I’ve written about this at length, so I won’t belabor it again, but Superman without Lois Lane is hardly Superman at all. She’s been there from issue one, so having her central was always going to be a must for my favorite cover.  

Third Eye Comics Retailer Variant by Kaare Andrews.

Forbidden Planet Variant by Jock / Bulletproof Comix Variant by Gabriele Dell'Otto

I don’t really have deeper thoughts about either of these, other than “Hoo boy, look at this!”

Forbidden Planet Retailer Variant by Jock.

Bulletproof Comix Retailer Variant by Gabriele Dell'Otto.

1990s Variant by Dan Jurgens and Kevin Nowlan

I'd like this one quite a bit more (heavy Lois presence and all) if not for the Kaare Andrews cover, which I like better.

1990s decade variant by Dan Jurgens and Kevin Nowlan.

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

March 2018 Indie Comics Grab Bag: Eclectic Choices

This month we have perhaps our most eclectic selection of indie books yet, drawn from a trio of disparate genres: horror, traditional high fantasy, and cowboy mech. That’s right, cowboy mech. Not a whole lot of common ground there, and when considered thematically this set of books becomes even more diverse. Which I think is super cool!

For two reasons: 1. It furthers an idea I’m vocal about, which is that if you think there aren’t good comics coming out these days, you just aren’t looking hard enough, and 2. As noted in January and February, the point of this feature is to diversify the comics and creators I’m reading this year, hopefully thereby passing more variety of recommendations onto all of you.

With that in mind, I take the disparity between our three books here as a sign we’re doing this whole thing right. Or, as right as we can anyway. This is a site geared toward writers, so I’d wager most of you well know how impossible it is to get any work 100 percent right.

But enough depression! Onward to our picks:

Infidel #1 (of 5) by Pornsak Pichetshote, Aaron Campbell & Jose Villarrubia

Hoo boy, for a guy who doesn’t often read horror comics, I sure read some scary books in March. First there was Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino’s excellent Gideon Falls, which starts with eccentricity and slowly segues into sheer horror (a la David Lynch’s Twin Peaks), and then there was Infidel.

This book is a pure horror story, one with a fear-heavy introduction. Once that’s over, things let up enough for us to become familiar with our characters and plot: a Muslim-American young woman is living in a new city (possibly Boston?) with her husband (I think), his young daughter, and his mom. The young woman feels like she is starting to get along with the mom, but her lover is not so sure, insisting Mom can’t be trusted. Oh yeah, and there’s been a bombing in their apartment building, racism is blatant and aggressive, and our hero is stalked by ghosts.

Aaron Campbell and Jose Vilarrubia’s imagery in Infidel is truly horrifying, while Pornsak Pichetshote does a great job putting us in the head of our main character, making us feel her doubts over whether she’s being treated differently or whether sheer tense relationships are just byproducts of everyday life. In a sense, Infidel uses horror tropes to make the audience feel the gaslit nature of racial discrimination for many in modern times.

Overall: Infidel has the foundation and potential to be one powerful (and powerfully scary) book.

The Highest House #1 by Mike Carey, Peter Gross & Fabien Alquier

In a recent conversation on Twitter, a friend mentioned that of the genres undergoing a resurgence in today’s comic industry, fantasy is one of the strongest yet least heralded. I thought of Seven to Eternity, Realm, Rat Queens, God Country, Monstress, Mirror, Autumnlands, Rose, Birthright, and many others I can’t recall. So many; I immediately agreed with my friend.

Add The Highest House to the list. A somewhat traditional high fantasy concept done to near-perfection by creative team Mike Carey, Peter Gross and Fabien Alquier, The Highest House is a little darker, perhaps, than most fantasy. It puts readers into a world where slavery is almost pedestrian and the population participates without protest. Within 10 pages, we see an innkeeper sell his nephew and a woman with a dead stare offer up two of her children (one of which is our protagonist). It becomes clear we are in a world rife with inequity and disparity of wealth.

The art is done well throughout. The earliest scenes are kept to constricting, almost claustrophobic panels that really emphasize the tight circumstances of the poor folks at the inn. Once we get to our wealthier city, we finally get a freeing splash page of our lavish new locale. This is just one example of excellent choices Peter Gross makes with perspective. Gross also does a fantastic job hitting the emotional beats, with the sequence below standing out as particularly heartbreaking (that arm belongs to the slave boy’s mother).

Overall: There’s so much ethos in the layers of this fantasy world. I enjoyed the debut so much that I’ve decided to seek out the creative team’s previous work, The Unwritten.

Literary Cousin: Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner. Technically this is genre fiction, but I’d still like to point out the existence of this phenomenal fantasy novel about income inequality, in which wealthy nobles settle even minor squabbles by conscripting the services of disposable swordsmen who fight to the death.

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

REVIEW: Justice League of America #27 by Steve Orlando & Hugo Petrus

Justice League of America #27 is an excellent example of why I’ve loved this too-short run (just over a year and change). The team dynamics are once again complex and logical, giving careful readers a reward for their attentions. From the start, this incarnation of the JLA has been rife with incohesion, which is fitting due to it being a wildly disparate group, and writer Steve Orlando has expertly played out the dynamics that would logically develop.

Orlando really lives in his characters heads when writing, capturing subtle bits like—this week—The Ray boasting to Batman he was in control and Batman responding, yeah, good job, or Black Canary going out of her way to show Aztek welcoming kindness. We’ve previously seen The Ray questioning his worth alongside Canary or Batman, and it’s nice to see him act in a way that calls back to that while also demonstrating his growth. That's just one example, though. The book has many.

And it’s actually this idea of varied levels of hero experience I’ve enjoyed most in the JLA’s interactions, the ways younger and newer heroes like The Ray act around the vets. It’s really created not just a sense of past for each character, but for the current DCU, something inherently absent from the team books during New 52.

This idea of past especially shines with this issue’s villain: Chronos, David Clinton, the time-manipulating arch foe of the Ray Palmer Atom. As Ryan Choi tells us, “Chronos spends ages plotting an attack in what seems like seconds to us. He’s a high-tech thief with an old school grudge.” And how do you beat him? “You don’t do it alone.”

This may as well be a thesis statement for this issue, if not the entirety of Orlando’s JLA. Batman brought this squad together while acknowledging they weren’t the Justice League proper, not the A Squad, but were still needed to address a specific incident (see the prior arc!) while the heavy hitters were otherwise occupied. JLA #27—like every other issue in this run—stuck to that theme of teamwork over inexperience, while also incorporating the lessons and history from the team’s recent past. This may not be the easiest book to dive into, but if you invest, it more than rewards you for reading, and I’ve always been a fan of superhero complexity.

As for the art, I loved what Hego Petrus did with his page layouts, using inset panels with facial closeups to convey emotion during key moments. Petrus also did an annoyingly good job of making Chronus stupid face look smug (and punchable). I am far from a violent guy, but I must admit I fantasized about taking a swing at him in the final panel.

Best Line: “I don’t want them to get hurt because of me, but I’m not going to argue with Batman. Does anyone argue with Batman?” -Ryan Choi

Overall: Justice League of America #27 is another issue in a great run driven by the complexity of the relationships between team members with disparate motivations, levels of experiences, and emotional IQs. The villain in the story is a time manipulator, which fits wonderfully with Orlando’s foundational theme of overcoming experience and living up to legacy. Add to it Hego Petrus’ fantastic artwork—especially on detail shots and facial expressions—and you’ve got an issue that makes me sad this run is ending next month. 9.0/10

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.

ADVANCE REVIEW: Wasted Space #1 by Michael Moreci and Hayden Sherman

I’ve been a fan of Vault Comics for a while now, continually impressed by how the rising publisher manages to put out some of the best pure science fiction and fantasy stories in the graphic medium. I’ve written about this before, but along with Lion Forge and Aftershock Comics, Vault is slowly remaking perceptions of what indie publishers can be, exercising incredible judgement at the talent and books they promote.

Vault’s latest sci-fi book, Wasted Space—by writer Michael Moreci, artist Hayden Sherman, and colorist Jason Wordie—is yet another in a growing collection of titles that are as entertaining as they are complex. Wasted Space is set in a dystopian future where most facets of life have evolved toward their logical extremes, including technology, religion and—most importantly for our plot—drugs. I was impressed here from the first page, wherein a blip of a human form floats tethered to a ship deep in the cosmos. The narration begins: The galaxy is totally f*%#&@.

I’m an easy mark for stories about futures wherein things have gone massively awry, and I’m also prone to liking protagonists who start their hero’s journey feeling distant and defeated. Wasted Space delivers both those elements, and it delivers it well. This book’s marketing describes it as Preacher + Phillip K. Dick + Star Wars, and, to be sure, there are shades of all those properties, but Space also addresses modern concerns, as most good science fiction tends to do.

The social commentary, however, never becomes too overt, and Moreci’s script here is careful to focus on characterization. The galaxy has gotten bleak, sure, and it’s clearly due to some combination of religious extremism, greed, group think, and charismatic-yet-devious leadership, thereby forcing much of the populous to seek chemical-fueled escape. To me, this world seems more than a little familiar, and I’d wager that’s the point.

It’s also worth noting that Hayden Sherman is fast-becoming indie comics go-to artist for frenetic dystopian futures. I first noted this earlier in the year after reading Cold War #1 from Aftershock. That book, drawn by Sherman as well, is a breakneck story of a world in which cryogenic promises have been broken. Once-frozen citizens awake and are plunged by some shadowy control agent into violence. In Cold War, Sherman accomplishes some incredible world building as well as clear action in his panels.

Sherman’s work in Wasted Space again creates a set of sci-fi cityscapes that enhance the script rather than distract, and while there isn’t as much kinetic energy as there was in Cold War (I struggle to think of any recent book with as much kinetic energy as Cold War) Sherman does a pitch-perfect job of using panel perspectives to convey the tension, desperation, yearnings to escape, and loneliness that drives our characters.

Overall: Wasted Space #1 is a super solid debut issue with an incredible amount of promise. Being a vocal proponent of Vault, I’m often asked for a good title to start with, and for the sci-fi set my answer moving forward will likely be Wasted Space. Basically, Wasted Space is a sci-fi allegory for our tumultuous times, one that raises questions about demagogues, escapism, and the dual businesses of selling religion and drugs. This debut issue does a great job of setting the stage and piquing interest for future installments. Count me in. 8.5/10.

Spare Thoughts: Moreci is a graduate of DC’s New Talent program, and his work first caught my attention in the publisher’s New Talent Showcase, which featured a story of his about the White Lantern at the time. It’s also worth noting that Cold War, which we mention here, was by Christopher Sebela, another graduate of that program. Along with Moreci and Sebela, that class of creators also featured Vita Ayala, who has been co-writing Supergirl with Steve Orlando and also had a recent notable indie book of her own in the form of The Wilds. In other words, how badly would you like to participate in DC’s new talent program? Look at the careers it’s helping to launch!

Wasted Space #1 is available for pre-order now at your local comic shop, and it will be out April 18. 

Zack Quaintance is a career journalist who also writes fiction and makes comics. Find him on Twitter at @zackquaintance. He lives in Sacramento, California.