(Note: Mr. Deeley will no longer be describing comics in religious terms, as it sounds crazy even to Him, and it is too difficult to maintain the theme over several articles. He will, however, refer to Himself in the diving third person. Praise The Michael, whose mercy is so boundless, he tolerates the presence of lesser beings. Thank The Michael for not killing you.)
Four more comics from the Gold Level publishers, and an unexpected comic from Wizards of the Coast.
Gemstone:
Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse and Uncle Scrooge
W: Carl Barks, (on “Uncle Scrooge”), and possibly Eleanor Packer, (on “Mickey Mouse”).
A: Carl Barks
Two classic stories are reprinted here in a flip-book format. Mickey Mouse gets caught up in a gem smuggling crime after Minnie buys a “one of a kind” hat. Scrooge McDuck meets Flintheart Glomgold, another duck claiming to be the richest person in the world. The contest to prove who’s richer boils down to uncoiling their string collections across Africa.
This year has two all-ages comics that really can be enjoyed by all ages. Huh.
This “Uncle Scrooge” story reprints the first appearance of Glomgold, Scrooge’s villainous rival. Reading this story reminded me of the “Ducktales” cartoon series of the early 90’s. Looking back, it seems all those characters and stories were inspired by Barks’ work. The Beagle Boys, Magica DeSpell, Gyro Gearloose, and Glomgold were great characters that sparked fun, multi-episode stories. I’m now interested in finding more old “Scrooge” stories by Barks.
I haven’t read many of Barks’ Duck stories, but I found them to be among the finest examples of visual storytelling. The adventures are fun and take the characters in strange, unpredictable directions. The comics are rich without being complex. One could cal them elegant. It’s no wonder Barks’ “Donald Duck” stories remain highly praised by comics critics; They are among the greatest comics ever made.
The “Mickey Mouse” story is the only one ever drawn by Barks. Not coincidentally, it’s the only time I didn’t think Mickey was a pussy. Never liked that rat; too friendly and too popular. Now Donald Duck, always angry at the world that beats him down, THERE’S a cartoon character that entertains me.
Quality: A small sample of the finest comics ever made.
Publisher: Included are two, TWO, subscription coupons for Gemstone’s other Disney comics, and the comic shop locator number, (which you really don’t need if you’ve found this book). So if a reader wants more, he/she can find it.
Industry: The text inside the front cover connects Barks’ work to the “Ducktales” series. That helps convey the impact Barks’ comics had on the Disney cartoons. And the work of Carl Barks really isn’t known outside of serious comics and Disney historians. So any attention brought to it is appreciated. Plus, it introduces parents to more kid-friendly comics. And once we hook the kids, MWHA-HA-HA-HA-HA!
Overall: 4.
. One of the best free comics this year.IDW:
IDW Sampler
W: Max Allan Collins w/Matthew V. Clemens; Jeff Mariotte; J. C. Vaughn & Mark L. Haynes; Steve Niles
A: Gabriel Rodriguez, Ashley Wood, & Sulaco Studios; Jean Diaz; Renato Guedes; Ben Templesmith
IDW gives us the first free comic book with variant covers! This sampler was shipped with covers featuring either “CSI”, “The Shield”, “24”, or “30 Days of Night”. All covers appear to be in equal numbers, and there are no differences inside. This is either an attempt to attract fans of different series, or the makings of the first collectible free comic.
The sampler includes pages from previously published or upcoming works from IDW. Each group is accompanied by a short explanation of the TV series and its connection to the comic. Now, I’ve seen enough episodes of “CSI” to wonder how the hell it got so popular. I’ve never seen “The Shield” or “24”, but this comic got me wondering about them. And, of course, I’ve heard everyone rave about ’30 Days of Night’. This was my first look at the comic and it is freaky weird! Damn!
Quality: These samples are good enough to get me interested in the comics. The art for the “24” special stands out as the best. Its painted style is photorealistic. The summary says every two pages represent an hour, thus recreating the real-time technique of the TV show. I’d like to see that for myself. The pages from “CSI” seem the most pedestrian and the plot feels very “by the numbers”. ‘30 Days of Night’ looks scarier and stranger than I imagined. And the few pages of “The Shield” are enough to convince me these are bad cops doing a good job. Great stuff.
Publisher: A list of other trade books is included. It presents IDW as a publisher of primarily horror and crime books. There’s also an order form for readers to fill out and take to their local shop. Hopefully, the clerk will be business savvy enough to realize giving the customers what they want will make him more money!
Industry: The controversial horror and crime comics that brought public outcry against comics in the 50’s are alive and well at IDW. Joy.
Overall:
. It convinced me to read ’30 Days of Night’, and maybe pick up the “24” comic. A successful marketing tool.Image:
Image Comics Summer Special
W: Robert Place Napton; Robert Kirkman; Erik Larsen
A: Francis Manapul; Ryan Ottley & Bill Crabtree; Erik Larsen; Todd McFarlane Productions
Four short stories featuring Image Comics superheroes. A brief history of Spawn is followed by a mysterious villain toying with Witchblade, Tomb Raider and Strykeforce. Teen hero Invincible fights a giant robot and deals with his father’s recent departure. And the Savage Dragon defends his home, has a long talk with his wife, and worries that his powers are fading.
Last year, I discovered that Erik Larsen and Robert Kirkman were creating the best comics at Image. This comic confirms that belief. The “Invincible” and “Savage Dragon” stories both follow the same plot of a hero/villain fight, followed by long, meaningful conversations with loved ones. And those conversations are the best parts of the stories! They’re packed with more drama, more pathos, more heart than a dumb fight. It’s exactly what makes superhero comics better than other media: The unique balance of fantasy, violence, and domestic drama, all sharing the same level of emotional intensity!
Top Cow’s contribution is a quick series of fights. Perhaps it’s a teaser for some future crossover? The penciled art is pretty though. And the Spawn section? This was put together by Todd’s assistants. Probably more than one, as the narration changes from third to first person. Twice.
Quality: Take out Spawn, replace it with “Wanted” or more pages of the other characters, and you’d have a better book. As is, I give it
Publisher: A list of other Image books is in the back, but the comic makes Image look like a superhero comics publisher. We know it’s much more than that.
Industry: Larsen and Kirkman prove superhero comics can be exciting AND meaningful!
Overall: 3.6BULLETS. Not an accurate view of Image Comics, but a nice book none the less. Sure to bring attention to ‘Savage Dragon’ and ‘Invincible’.
Marvel:
Marvel Age Spider-Man #1
W: Daniel Quantz, (based on a script by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko)
A: Mark Brooks; Jonboy Meyers & Pat Davidson
And now, the character responsible for this day! For the first time, Marvel gives us a complete comic book: ‘Marvel Age Spider-Man’ #1, a new teling of the classic ‘Amazing Spider-man’ #2. (FCBD editions of ‘Ultimate Spider-Man’ and ‘Ultimate X-Men’ were edited versions of the originals.) The ‘Marvel Age’ comics are Marvel’s answer to manga. These comics include modern retellings of the Silver Age ‘Amazing Spider-man’ and ‘Fantastic Four’, ‘Spider-Girl’, and a recent Spider-man/Dr. Octopus miniseries. Digest-sized collections of these series are also published, often before the collected issues are published separately!
I have mixed feelings about this idea. On one hand, I see the value and necessity of redoing the old stories in a new style. If we’re going to pretend Peter Parker hasn’t been Spider-Man for over 40 years, we’ll have to mentally update the old stories ourselves. And the styles of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko don’t exactly appeal to today’s “Dragonball Z” fan. On the other hand, those stories are classics, held sacred by comics fans of all creeds. To suggest any changes to these stories, even superficial changes, repels my comic-reading core.
Having read the comics twice, I will say it’s not bad, nor is it an improvement. But it isn’t meant to be. Just as before, Parker gets the idea to sell pictures of himself as Spider-Man to the Daily Bugle. He works out the Vulture’s secret to flight and builds a device to defeat him. He also foils an alien invasion hidden in a repair shop.
The biggest difference between this version and the original is the storytelling style. There are no thought balloons. They’ve been replaced by caption boxes. Panel layout isn’t as rigid and regular as Ditko’s work. There is also more non-verbal communication between characters. In the Marvel Age version, Betty Brant gestures to Parker on how to get more money out of J. J. J. Brant wasn’t even in the original story. The original ended with one panel of Parker magnanimously giving Aunt May enough money to pay for a year’s rent and “the newest kitchen appliances you ever drooled over”. In Marvel Age, Peter hands her the money, Aunt May looks down for a moment, then say, “Peter? Are you doing something illegal?” I love that line. I think Stan would’ve written that if he was starting out today.
On a side note, I think these Marvel age Spider-Man and Fantastic Four series could be used as try-out books for new talent. They’ve already got the basic plot. The test is can they make it interesting? Is the writer’s dialogue natural? Can the artist keep the action and story flowing smoothly from panel-to-panel, page-to-page? Given the idea, can they create a story?
Quality: Pretty decent, but reading it felt very light. It’s a lot easier than the original version, but somehow lacks the depth and emotion.
Publisher: Included is an ad for ‘Marvel Age Spider-Man’ and ‘Marvel Age Fantastic Four’ digests, an ad for the new ‘Amazing Fantasy’, and a Marvel comics subscription page with the marvel.com address. Which is the least a publisher could include. A little history about Spider-Man and the original comic would have been appreciated.
Industry: Marvel makes Spider-Man and other heroes. That’s all you need to know.
Overall: 2.6BULLETS I would recommend the ‘Marvel Age’ books to get young kids interested in superheroes.
Wizards of the Coast:
Dungeons and Dragons: Crisis in Raimiton
W: Matt Clarke
A: Scott Roller, Matt Clarke, and Mat Phillips
I had no idea this was being given away. It’s not even listed on the Free Comic Book Day Website. This comic tries to give you an idea of what it’s like playing Dungeons & Dragons, the mother of all RPG’s. The first four pages outline the basics of creating a character. The rest of the book illustrates the adventure our gamers go on.
My brother used to play D&D, as well as White Wolf games. I tried to play, but never had the patience for all the rules and dice roles. I like my imagination unrestrained, thank you. Besides, sitting around with other guys playing pretend sounds pretty sad, even to a guy with over 1,000 comic books.
The comic doesn’t do much to persuade the non-player that D&D could be “fun”. The comic begins with the Dungeon Master, (the writer and organizer of the adventure), teaching a new player to create a character. Meanwhile, the other players are hanging around waiting for the new guy to get ready. So already we have D&D as something hard to get into.
But let’s assume you’ve created a character before coming to a game. You’ve read the basic rules, got the paper and pencil for keeping track of your character’s skills and abilities, graph paper for drawing the map of the dungeon you’re exploring, you set of 5 types of dice, snack food, and maybe a figurine of your character. Now you’re all ready to…
…sit and talk and calculate for the next 2 hours. Minimum.
OK, say you get into the fantasy. You’re a ranger, leading a cleric, a warrior woman, and a thieving elf to a cave full of zombies. Whatever you imagine, it has to look better than this comic! You remember those burnouts in high school who drew dragons on their notebooks? Those guys were better artists than this crew. What’s worse is knowing about the talent pool Wizards of the Coast could draw from for this comic! The illustrations on their Magic: The Gathering cards are beautiful! Some of them are by experienced comic book artists. Phil Foglio has drawn for them. They could’ve gotten Foglio for this! That would have looked great! (Note: See ‘Girl Genius’ for Foglio’s humorous style, and ‘XXXenophile’ for his fun, naked babes.)
Instead we get this dreck drawn by guys who clearly never had any artistic training. The art is boring, flat, amateurish, and just plain ugly. The story is pretty thin too. Wandering adventurers pick up a new guy and save the town from a tax collector’s zombie hoard. No, seriously, they fight an zrmy of zombies used to collect taxes. In that respect, the comic perfectly mimics the kinds of adventures written by DM’s with no writing ability.
The worst part is we never actually see the players playing the game! All we see is the fantasy! The comic never cuts back to the players rolling dice or deciding actions, or arguing about who should go first. But if it did, it would show just how lame D&D actually is.
Quality: I got a comic book from Compaq computers that implied Compaq trained underwater superheroes and all electronic commerce was routed through a single submarine somewhere in the ocean. This comic was worse.
.Publisher: I’d call it bait and switch if the bait wasn’t rancid pork. This tries to show how a D&D game can be fun, but that can’t be done with a substandard comic. It makes WotC look cheap.
Industry: This had nothing to do with the comic book industry. This was for the RPG industry! And it fails again! ‘Dork Tower’ puts a better face on RPG’s than this!
Overall:
. If this wasn’t free, I’d give it no bullets at all. Yeah, I’m complaining about a free comic. It’s that bad!Well, that covers the Gold Sponsors. You probably got these books at your shop last weekend. If not, drop by and ask if they have any left. Go to other stores too. If the shop hasn’t given them all away, get a couple for a non-reading friend. Or just hand them out to the neighborhood kids.
Lucky for me, my brother went to a different shop than I on Saturday, and picked up some of the b&w books I missed. I’ll have reviews for those in a couple of days. Now these would have been harder to find, but I consider them to be more important to comics promotion than the other books. The indie and small press comics can show the broad diversity of comic book genres and styles, not to mention the artistic sophistication lacking in mainstream books.
They’ve also got swearing. And blood. Lots of beautiful, black blood.
Later.
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