December 3, 2018
hughjodonnell
Hugh Likes Comics, Review, Uncategorized
Chuck Brown, David F Walker, Deiselpunk, Harlem Renaissance, HLC, Hugh Likes Comics, Image, Monster Hunting, Sanford Greene
Bitter Root #1
Created by David F. Walker, Chuck Brown, and Sanford Greene
Color Artists: Rico Renzi and Sanford Greene
Lettered by Clayton Cowles
Published by Image
The Skinny: Dieselpunk Monster Hunting in the Harlem Renaissance
Set in 1920’s Harlem, Bitter Root is the story of the Sangerye family, monster hunters who protect humanity from terrifying monsters called “Jinoo.” But they work in secret, and not without cost. As the older generation passes, the younger members of the family are called upon to step up, but trainee Cullen struggles, and Blink chafes at her role doing “women’s work.” But with the forces of darkness closing in around them, can they afford family tension?
Following their run on Power Man and Iron Fist in 2016, Walker and Greene are back, along with co-writer Chuck Brown, and they are killing it.
Pairing the monster hunting aesthetic with the Harlem Renaissance is a bold and brilliant move from this team. Greene’s designs and costuming are great, full of big chunky machines and a variety of period fashion that looks great on these characters. The night-time coloring is moody and atmospheric, and the period setting reminds the reader that we don’t have to visit fictional countries to see black excellence in comics.
Period punk sub-genres too often get caught up in the pomp of Empire and the glitz of Roaring Twenties, and forego the punk responsibilities for pulpier trappings. Bitter Root does an excellent job of bringing the shine and the shadow of the times to the front. I can’t wait to see where this series goes next. You can find it at Your Local Comics Shop or digitally via Comixology!
November 12, 2018
hughjodonnell
Hugh Likes Comics, Uncategorized
Boom! Studios, Delilah S Dawson, HLC, Hugh Likes Comics, Matias Basla, Sparrowhawk
Sparrowhawk #1and 2
Written by Delilah S. Dawson
Illustrated by Matias Basla
Colored by Rebecca Nalty
Lettered by Jim Campbell
Published by Boom! Studios
The Skinny: Illegitimate daughter Artemisia must fight for a world that has always rejected her when she accidentally trades places with the Faerie Queen.
Artemisia Grey has had a difficult life. Born to a roustabout English nobleman and a slave, she was treated as no more than a servant to the rest of her family, serving as her older sister’s maid, until they needed a marriageable daughter to marry off, of course. Artemisia wishes for nothing more than the freedom to do as she wishes and for someone to love her as she is. The Faerie Queen uses her desires to trade places with her, trapping Artemisia in her realm and gaining a foothold in the human world. It is up to her family and her world, but when the time comes, will she even want to?
Dawson’s dark faerie tale is smart and well paced. Art’s trip through the looking glass from horrible situation to worse feels like an inverse of Alice’s story. Unseelie is a land here everything makes the most brutal kind of sense. Her guides through this world a Crispin, a monstrous little creature that is constantly urging her to acts of violence, and Warren, the only unloved son of the Unseelie Queen, and an avowed pacifist. Together they navigate a complex and mysterious fantasy world.
Basla’s art and Nalty’s colors create a vibrant but unsettling world, full of dutch angles and oversaturated and unnatural tones. It’s an excellent effect, and is contrasted with their much more constrained treatment of the ‘real’ world.
“Sparrowhawk” is a sharp and dark portal fantasy that delves into some fertile thematic territory concerning Love, Colonialism, and the moral hazards of both. You can find the first two issues online via Comixology, or in print at your local comics shop.
October 26, 2018
hughjodonnell
Hugh Likes Comics, Uncategorized
Conventions, HLC, Hugh Likes Comics, Indie Comics, Oni Press, Post-Apocalyptic, The Long Con
The Long Con
Written by Dylan Meconis and Ben Coleman
Drawn by E. A. Denich
Colors by M. Victoria Robado
Published by Oni Press
The Skinny: The Comic Con at the end of the world
What happens when The End of the World happens during a major Science Fiction convention? Five years ago, a cataclysmic event destroyed the city of Los Spinoza, and, presumably, the Los Spinoza Convention Center, home to Long Con, the world’s largest and greatest comic convention. But what makes a better bomb shelter than 600,000 square feet of Brutalist concrete? When evidence emerges that something survived, struggling reporter Victor Lai, who barely escaped from the Long Con minutes before the disaster, is sent back in by his editor to investigate.
The Long Con is a delightful look at the apocalypse through the lens of pop culture fandom. It’s a clever microcosm of fans, some of whom are literally eating each other once they get cut off and have to figure out how to survive. The book seamlessly shifts between the last day of the convention and Victor’s return, with his friend Dez guiding him though the twin mazes of Convention culture and the survivors. Meconis and Coleman’s wit is sharp, Denich’s designs are charming without being too cartoonish, and Robado’s use of color is spot on. The past is a riot of bright colors, and the future is just the right touch of grimy.
The story weaves in a third layer, a fictional Star Trek-inspired media property called “Skylarks” that does a lot of great storytelling work and a delightful piece of parody all on its own.
The Long Con just released its fourth issue, and you can find it on Comixology or at your local comics shop. I highly recommend it.
September 28, 2018
hughjodonnell
Hugh Likes Comics, Uncategorized
Chelsea Cain, HLC, Hugh Likes Comics, Image, Kate Niemczyk, Kitties you guys!, Man-eaters
Man-eaters #1
Written by Chelsea Cain
Drawn by Kate Niemczyk
Colored by Rachelle Rosenberg
Lettered by Joe Carmagna
Published by Image
The Skinny: A mutated parasite turns adolescent girls into were-panthers in this metafictional horror comic.
Not very many horror comics have sparkly, pink covers. But “Man-eaters,” is something special. From the creative team whose work on “Mockingbird” for Marvel drew the ire of what became comicsgate, and also became a best-seller in trade, this metafictional horror story is doing a lot of waving to their haters. And it is glorious.
Thanks to a mutation in toxoplasmosis, adolescent girls are subject to a terrifying transformation during their period. Maude, daughter of a single homicide detective, is left on her own while he investigates a grisly killing. But the crime scene indicates a large cat attack. And repaying anything else, would spoil the issue.
There is something to be applauded in not just facing controversy, but diving towards it with arms outstretched. When Cain was hounded from social media for the galling crime of having her polymath/spy/superheorine Mockingbird wear a t-shirt referring to herself as ‘feminist,’ she could have done the safe thing and wrote charming and inoffensive stories. Instead, she and Mockingbird artist Kate Niemczyk are doing a horror comic about menstruation, and the panels are filled with easter eggs, references, and downright middle fingers to their haters. This is a book that no one could accuse of being voiceless.
And the tone is so striking. Maude is a delightful, energetic twelve-year-old who comes through brilliantly on the page. She is a spotlight in a very dark world, which is constantly pushing at the corners. This is a horror book that doesn’t look like one at first glance. It is bubbly and unsettling in equal measure, and it works so well.
A lot of this first issue is world building, so we only have a few short scenes and character introductions, but Image seems to be banking on “Man-eaters as the next “Bitch Planet,” and it certainly has a strong start. I’m already looking forward to the next issue.
This is a book people will be talking about, and you can pick one up at your local comic shop, or get a digital copy from Comixolgy.
August 14, 2018
hughjodonnell
Hugh Likes Comics, Review
DC Comics, HLC, Hugh Likes Comics, The Sandman, Vertigo
The Sandman Universe #1
Story by Neil Gaiman
Written by Simon Spurier, Nalo Hopkinson, Kat Howard, and Dan Watters
Drawn by Bilquis Evely, Tom Fowler, Dominike “Domo” Stanton, Max Fiumara, and Sebastian Fiumara
Colors by Mat Lopes
Letters by Simon Bowland
Published by Vertigo
The Skinny – Vertigo returns to The Dreaming to introduce a quartet of Gaiman-inspired comics.
“The Sandman” was one of those pieces of culture that came into my life right when I needed it to. I read it in my early twenties, after it had ended, and had been collected into trade paperbacks. Ultimately a story about storytelling, it was very different from DC’s four-color Superhero offerings, even though it shared a setting, or at least a common world.
The Sandman Universe #1 brings back that type of storytelling with a fresh start. Essentially, this serves as a reboot and introduction to four Vertigo books all reaching back to Gaiman’s seminal ’90’s work.
The current incarnation of Dream is missing (following the events of DC’s Metal event) and dream raven Matthew heads out to the mortal realm to find him. Along the way encounters various other stories without being much involved in them. The stories as presented are a bit thin, but feel very authentic to the original Sandman and Vertigo comics, and they’re gorgeous to look at. Mat Lopes’s coloring ties them all together, and they have that distinct soft palate that set Vertigo apart from its four-color contemporaries.
The Sandman Universe #1 is a small aperitif after so many years away from these stories, but it’s a tease for some series that do have the potential to reignite that particular spark. You can take a look for yourself at your local comics shop, or digitally from Comixology.
July 16, 2018
hughjodonnell
Hugh Likes Comics, Review, Uncategorized
Cake, HLC, Hugh Likes Comics, Marvel Comics, Wolverine, X-23
X-23 #1
Written by Mariko Tamaki
Drawn by Juann Cabal
Colored by Nolan Woodard
Lettered by VC’s Cory Petit
Published by Marvel Comics
The Skinny: Laura and Gabby are back in a new comic with an old name.
I fell in love with Tom Taylor’s take on Laura Kinney, and was sad when All-New Wolverine ended, only to be rebranded with the character’s original hero name, X-23. I picked up the first issue with a bit of apprehension, but Mariko Tamaki’s story is still character-focused and full of heart, and it is going in some very interesting directions.
Laura is the clone of Logan, the original Wolverine. She was created to be a weapon. Recently, she met her sister Gabby, a younger clone of herself created for the same purpose. Now they’re out in the world, hunting down the rogue operations like the ones that created them. But their operations may put them into conflict with Laura’s old acquaintances, and fellow clones, the Stepford Cuckoos.
Stories about clones are stories about what it means to be human. They are also often, in the case of movies like “Blade Runner,” about people forced to deal with things that they are not prepared for, children in adult bodies. Tamaki has this down pat, picking Laura and Gabby up where Taylor left them and putting them in a situation they can’t cut their way out of. She very elegantly shows her understanding of the two leads personalities and puts her own spin on them. Taylor’s Gabby was light, silly, a spot of comic relief with the barest hint of the shadow a comic like “Wolverine” calls for. Tamaki carries all that over, but also zeroes in on the concept of Gabby as a child, and Laura as a young woman, barely out of her teens, thrust into the role of caregiver. It leads to some really nice moments that deepen both characters.
Juann Cabal, who worked on All-New Wolverine, does a great job on pencils, and Woodard’s coloring is excellent. Particularly the way he colors Gabby, with little cartoonish spots of color to highlight her changing moods. I also liked the conceit that the art hanging in the X-Mansion is all based on classic X-Men covers. It added some fun little background details for long-time fans.
X-23 #1is on sale now at your Local Comics Shop or available digitally from Comixology. It’s a great place to jump on if you missed All-New Wolverine, and a welcome return for fans of Laura and Gabby.
June 26, 2018
hughjodonnell
Hugh Likes Comics, Uncategorized
Adriana Melo, DC Comics, Gail Simone, HLC, Hugh Likes Comics, Plastic Man
Plastic Man #1
Written by Gail Simone
Drawn by Adriana Melo
Colored by Kelly Fitzpatrick
Lettered by Simon Bowland
Published by DC Comics
The Skinny: Simone and Melo breathe new life into a Golden Age hero.
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect opening Plastic Man #1. The character is one of those ones that has been bouncing around the DC Universe forever, but that I haven’t read much of. Purchased under one of DC’s buyouts of their rivals after the end of the first great wave of superheroes, he faded into their ever-growing C-list bench for me, although he did go on to have his own cartoon in the 70’s.
The story is still very golden age, but this remixed origin has some nice modern touches. Eel O’Brian was a safecracker until a job in a mysterious chemical factory left him shot, doused with something caustic, and left for dead by the rest of his gang. But in the classic tradition, what should have killed him in fact gave him super-powers, in this case, the ability to stretch and change his shape. But coming back from the dead with powers just leads him to a whole new set of problems as he tries to piece together what has happened to him.
Simone (Deadpool, Domino) is perhaps the best possible choice for a book like this. Her mastery of the different story elements lends a subtlety that is indicative of her style. She invokes crime elements without being salacious, even with a scene set in a Justice League-themed gentlemen’s club. She invokes pathos without being schmaltzy, and the humor of the character doesn’t quite cross the line into goofy. She nails the balance. Her Plastic Man is a criminal with a conscience, a hero with a healthy distrust of the forces of law and order, and a goofball struggling to stay this side of sane. It’s territory she’s explored before, and she hits all the markers beautifully.
Melo’s art and Fitzpatrick’s colors are also well suited. Melo’s expressions are spot on, and she keeps up with Simone beat for beat. Fitzpatrick’s colors do just as much work, with characters in too-bright suits popping against the brown and gray of a crime-ridden urban blight. It’s all delicately done, and I want to see where this team takes them in future issues.
Plastic Man #1 is a modern-day reinvention of some classic comic book characters and tropes, and it’s a heck of a good time. You can find it on Comixology, or at your local comics shop.
June 13, 2018
hughjodonnell
Hugh Likes Comics, Review
Boom! Studios, Coda, HLC, Hugh Likes Comics, review
Coda #1
Written by Simon Spurrier
Drawn by Matias Bergarda
Published by Boom! Studios
The Skinny – A cynical wanderer navigates a lost magical world in this beautifully illustrated post-apocalyptic dark fantasy.
It is a given in a certain field of fantasy fiction, from Lord of the Rings to “The Legend of Zelda” that when a good, magical, noble fantasy kingdom is faced with annihilation from a Dark Lord, Good will, no matter the odds and no matter how long it takes, triumph in the end. But what if it doesn’t?
This is the central concept behind Spurrier and Bergarda’s “Coda.” A cynical wanderer, and former Royal Bard is searching the wasteland for his missing wife, until he stumbles across Ridgetown, a seeming oasis of magical and technological might out of the ‘old days.’ And they have the enchanted cannon to prove it. But where is their magic coming from? And what would happen to them if they were to lose it?
Coda is “Mad Max” with magic. Or more accurately, with a drought of magic. Just like water and gas running short in that series, we see how the world has fallen apart when the source of magic, a race of magical beings, are wiped out. And a world that seems to have been a black-and-white battlefield between the forces of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ is revealed to be a lot more complex as the survivors struggle to keep on living.
Spurrirer’s writing is intriguing, but it is brought to life by Bergarda’s sumptuous art and colors. The panels have a flow to them that carries you through the story at a disquieting rhythm. The colors have this soft-focus wash to them that establishes the fallen glory of the world perfectly.
Coda is available now from Comixology and Your Local Comics Shop. If you’re looking for something a bit different to tide you over until the next season of Game of Thrones, I heartily recommend it.
May 14, 2018
hughjodonnell
Hugh Likes Comics, Review, Uncategorized
Free Comic Book Day, Ghost in the Shell, HLC, Hugh Likes Comics, Kodansha
Ghost in the Shell: Global Neural Network Free Comic Book Day sapmple
Written by Max Gladstone
Art by David Lopez
Colors by Nayoung Kim
Published by Kodansha Comics
The Skinny: This single issue adventure gets a lot right in this Free Comic Book Day release.
When I first heard of “Ghost in the Shell: Global Neural Network,” I was skeptical. Western reinterpretations of manga and anime have a tendency to lose something in the translation, and the less said about the live-action film, the better. But I was pleasantly surprised by this single-issue story, distributed as a teaser for an upcoming anthology for Free Comic Book Day.
Gladstone’s story could be a slice of Masamune’s original manga, or a single-episode story of Stand Alone Complex. The Major accompanies Director Aramaki to a trade conference, where he immediately gets kidnapped, and she runs into an old war buddy while tracking him down. The characterization is spot-on from the two old spies philosophically discussing their natures to Aramaki glibly critiquing his interrogator’s technique.
The art is a bit rougher, and the only real flaw of the issue. Lopez’s technical art is spot on, reproducing the Masamune’s design elements and the 90’s cyberpunk aesthetic of the original comic. The character art is lacking, however. His faces in particular feel dated, as though he were copying off a circa-1990’s model sheet. Kim’s grimy colors are atmospheric and serve the story well.
Free Comic Book Day may be past, but if you can find a copy of this one-and-done story, and the character designs don’t throw you, this is a fun little cyberpunk tidbit.
February 2, 2018
hughjodonnell
Hugh Likes Comics, Uncategorized
Abbott, Boom! Studios, Comics, HLC, Hugh Likes Comics, review, Saladin Ahmed, Sami Kivela
Abbott #1
Written by Saladin Ahmed
Drawn by Sami Kivela
Published by Boom! Studios
The Skinny-A black woman reports on a series of bizarre killings with occult significance while battling institutional racism in ’70’s Detroit.
Abbott is a remarkable comic, with a remarkable first issue. Its most impressive flourish is the sense of place, and its tension, that Ahmed and Kivela bring to the page. They do a standup job of bringing the powder keg of 1970’s Detroit to life. Enter Elena Abbott, a match if there eer was one. A reporter for the Daily Press, she is an unyielding force for truth in a city reluctant to face its own demons. Abbott is under pressure from her bosses and the police after she reported on the killing of a child in police custody. When she investigates a series of gruesome killings with occult significance, she becomes the target of a killer who may bring down both Detroits.
Abbott #1 is a master class of a first issue. In a few scant pages, we’re introduced to the complex world of 70’s Detroit, Abbott, her few allies, and her numerous enemies. Kivela skillfully leads the eye, and colors by Jason Wordie provide a gritty, evocative palate. The panels are interspersed with the text of Abbott’s articles, only giving the reader snippets of phrases. It is an efficient trick to build the world and also raise the tension on the page.
Abbott #1 is the start of a brilliant new series. Pick it up digitally from Comixology, or find a copy at Your Local Comics Shop!
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Hugh J. O'Donnell 