It’s The Beginning Of The End In “Empire Of The Dead : Act Three” #2

Posted on May 6, 2015 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Okay, if we want to be technically accurate about things, I guess we could say that last month’s opening installment of George Romero’s Empire Of The Dead : Act Three was the “beginning of the end,” since it appears that some combination of editorial decision-making on Marvel’s part and agreement among the book’s creators (specifically, I’m sure, Romero himself) has come about to wrap this four-color epic up a bit sooner than originally announced (after three five-issue “arcs” rather than the previously-mentioned four or five — that’s what selling fewer than 10,000 copies a month does, ya know), but it didn’t really feel like the big wrap-up was imminent until this second issue hit the stands today. Gone is some of the dilly-dallying that had slowed down previous issues here and there, gone are a fair number of the supporting players (although they’re sure to be back), and, most crucially — gone are the zombies!

Seriously. There’s not a one of ’em to be found in the pages of this book. And that’s more than just a little weird.

Wih the “shamblers” having temporarily shambled off-stage, our erstwhile “street urchin,” Jo, takes commands the spotlight for about the first half of this issue, as she makes a new friend in her detention center/concentration camp, and the two of them quickly try to effect an escape once they figure out —or at least make an educated guess at — the true purpose of their new “home.” After that, it’s back to the “palace intrigue” swirling around Mayor Chandrake, his less-than-faithful wife, and his quickly-falling-apart-at-the-seams political opponent, Chilly Dobbs. Trust me when I say if our vampiric sitting chief executive of New York can’t beat this guy, well — he just plain doesn’t deserve to stay in office.

Dr. Penny Jones pops up for a brief moment — as seen below — but don’t expect any appearances from Paul Barnum. Detective Perez, or Xavier this time out — the action here is pretty concentrated and generally of the “set-up-for-a-big-climax” variety. The “rebel crew” once — and possibly still, to some extent — allied with Dixie Peach has a big part to play, though, as they reveal an audacious scheme to rip off the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the midst of all their otherwise-random destruction — and that destruction finally begins in earnest as this issue wraps up.

As you can see from the preview pages I’ve included with this review (feeling decidedly un-lazy today), Andrea Mutti continues with his obviously-Maleev-influenced ways here and the art looks pretty good on the whole, certainly a step up from what we were served in the second act, while Romero, for his part, has thrown all subtlety out the window with his scripting and is painting his characters with pretty broad brush-strokes at this point. Yeah, it may be clumsy at times, but it serves the purposes of the story just fine now that we’re in “time is definitely of the essence” mode.

So, yeah — the end is nigh, and in Empire Of The Dead : Act Two #3 you can definitely feel it fast approaching. The once-sprawling chessboard is getting tighter and tighter as the pieces move ever closer together and the moves they’re able to make become reduced exponentially. I have a pretty solid feel of where it’s all going and where each of our players is going to end up once it’s finished, but I certainly wouldn’t put it past Romero to still have a wild card or two left in his hand (shit, I’m mixing my game metaphors here) that he’s saving for precisely the right moment.

Change Is In The Air (Or Is That Just Spring?) In “Empire Of The Dead : Act Three” #1

Posted on April 1, 2015 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

When last we left the denizens of a zombie-and-vampire-infested future New York at the end of issue five of George Romero’s four-color ongoing undead epic Empire Of The Dead, it was the dead (okay, yeah, bad pun intended) of winter (in the real world — specifically, in the hemisphere of the real world where I happen to live) and all of our principal characters were in a series of rather-to-highly precarious positions (in the fictional world). After a brief hiatus in publication to “gear up” for the next five-part run, it seems as though everyone is still in a precarious position of one sort or another in the fictional world, but spring has definitely arrived in the real world, and with it comes some changes in the creative personnel involved on this title.

Most noticeably, as was the case with the second act, we’ve got a new artist for George Romero’s Empire Of The Dead : Act Three in the form of one Andrea Mutti, a name that’s probably new to most readers, but I think folks are going to like what he (yes, Andrea’s a guy) has to offer — Mutti first came to my attention for his work on Boom! Studios’ fun little zombie-themed four-parter The Returning, and has since popped up as a fill-in artist on issues of Evil Empire and Batman Eternal, and while his style isn’t quite as refined as that of EotD‘s first illustrator, Alex Maleev, there’s definitely a heavy Maleev influence here that’s readily apparent from the word go. Dalibor Talajic’s art on Act Two certainly improved as things went on, but a return to a more “sketchy” and horror-centric style is a move in the right direction, in my view, so props to Marvel editorial for making the change. A new artist on each arc seems to be the order of the day with this book, but if Mutti were to hang around for the fourth (and, as far as I know, final) act I certainly wouldn’t complain. Empire Of The Dead is looking shadowy and creepy again, and that’s as it should be.

Also new to the party is cover artist Francesco Mattina (I swear, the Italians are taking over this series!), and from what I can see so far (and you can, too, since the cover’s right at the top of this review) he’s certainly more than up to the task. Xavier has never looked so awesome as she does on this cover, wouldn’t you agree?

And speaking of covers — we get a variant this month, as well, by Phil Noto, this one focusing on the ever-devious Mayor Chandrake and spotlighting his unique brand of domestic troubles. I’ve included it right beneath this paragraph, and while I think it’s pretty good on the whole, it’s certainly not up to Noto’s usual standard, in my own humble opinion. Needless to say, I opted for Mattina’s main cover.

As the spotlighting of Xavier on said main cover would indicate, she’s the main focus this time around, as this issue takes her from the sidelines and moves her squarely front and center. She’s dead — again — but appears to be unwilling to stay down — again. Could it be there’s even more to her than we’d previously been led to believe? Why, yes, it could — and as she “progresses” from Dr. Penny Jones’ operating table to a holding stall beneath the coliseum, clutching her young friend Jo’s bag the entire time, she finds herself “graduating,” if you will, to the role of the zombie that everyone’s talking about. Many readers found the former SWAT officer to be little more than a female stand-in for Day Of The Dead‘s legendary Bub, but this issue makes it crystal clear that Romero has bigger plans in store for her, to put it mildly. The big “gotcha” moment that serves as this installment’s cliffhanger is all about her, and I’m still kicking myself for not seeing it coming earlier (although I should clarify and say that by “earlier,” I mean “in an earlier issue,” as opposed to “earlier in this one,” because Romero, unfortunately, telegraphs this ending a bit too early in the proceedings here).

As far as everybody else is concerned, our two ostensible “leads,” the aforementioned Dr. Jones and “zombie wrangler” Paul Barnum, pretty much tread water this time out, serving mainly as conduits for communicating Xavier’s situation/potential transformation, but Detective Perez’s investigation into New York’s missing children epidemic takes a fairly major leap forward here, and the political intrigue between Chandrake and his rival, Chilly Dobbs, yields some interesting developments, as well — I won’t say more than to hint that ol’ Chilly may be more of a literal puppet than we’d previously surmised. Fans of Jo will be pleased to learn (hope this isn’t giving too much away) that she’s also alive and well — at least for now.

As Noto’s cover variant clues us in on, there’s some serious tension brewing between Chandrake and his wife on the home front, and all in all one is left with the impression that the clock is definitely (and loudly) ticking against the mayor, the only question is what’s going to bring him down first — his political opponents, or his wife. Maybe both? Maybe neither? It’ll be interesting to find out, especially given that Dixie Peach and her southern-fried crew of hell-raisers seem to be sidling up ever closer to the “anti-Chandrake” brigade.

All in all, then, Empire Of The Dead : Act Three is off to a fairly solid start. The various plotlines are (for the most part) picking up steam as they converge, we’ve finally got a zombie at the forefront, and the art fits the tone of the story much better. Let’s see where the next four segments take us.

“All-New Hawkeye” #1 Hits The Mark

Posted on March 7, 2015 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Let’s be honest : as far as descriptives go, “all-new” is getting pretty fucking old — especially at Marvel Comics, where at this very moment it’s being flat-out used to death all across their entire line. Right now they’ve got All-New Invaders, All-New X-Men, All-New Captain America —hell, recently they even branded their entire “soft reboot” All-New Marvel Now! (which came right on the heels of the prior Marvel Now!) and saw fit, a couple of months back, to momentarily slap the label on their prestigious series of Miracleman reprints with All-New Miracelman Annual #1, despite the fact that the “headline” strip in that book was an unused Grant Morrison “inventory story” that had been sitting around gathering dust for nearly two decades.

Still, if there’s one thing the so-called “House Of Ideas” has always excelled at, it’s overkill, and now we can add All-New Hawkeye to the list, even though a) the series it’s “replacing” — namely Matt Fraction and David Aja’s more simply-titled Hawkeye — isn’t even over with yet, and has one more issue to go which will be every bit as “all-new” as this one is; and b) there’s really nothing terribly “new” about this series (apart from the cover price jumping from $2.99 to $3.99), especially in terms of tone and style, anyway.

Which isn’t to say it’s bad, mind you — quite the reverse, in fact. It’s probably no secret to those who follow my comics review on here that I’m generally less-than-enamored with Marvel for a variety of reasons, but Fraction and Aja’s Hawekeye has certainly been an exception : I’ve loved their take on Clint Barton, his brother Barney, and his protege, Kate Bishop, from the outset, and while the book’s critics do raise a number of semi-valid points (let’s remember that the “Hawkguy” label actually originated with those who found the “everyman” tone of the series to be cliched and overly-self-conscious before it was “repurposed” and turned into a positive by its fans), at the end of the day I could care less — the humor, heart, and humanity that the Matt n’ Dave tandem (with more-than-able assistance from occasional fill-in artist Annie Wu) brought to the table drowned out their detractors with grace, confidence, ease and, yes, style — which probably especially bugs the shit out of the curmudgeonly crew of “haters” because the fact that the book was supposedly “too stylish” was one of their chief complaints. So while “give us more of the same” has been the bane of comics, both creatively and commercially, for ages now, when it comes to all things Hawkeye, ya know what? It’s just fine with me — up to a point.

By and large, it seems like it’s fine with the new creative team of writer Jeff Lemire — who has a fair amount of experience with a certain emerald-clad archer over at DC — and artist Ramon Perez, as well, given that their supposedly “all-new” take on the character feels very much like a continuation of what’s come before, albeit with a few semi-significant new wrinkles added in. As the page reproduced directly above shows, Perez’s art is a reasonable approximation of Aja’s style, and Lemire’s got the characterization of Clint and Kate down pat, so if you don’t want to see this particular boat rocked too much, the first issue of this new series (which kicks off a five-part storyline titled “Wunderkammer”) will leave you feeling in very safe hands, indeed.

Which isn’t to say that they don’t appear to have at least some level of ambition — I’m sure Lemire, Perez, and co-colorist (more on that in a moment) Ian Herring would prefer to label what they’re doing as “building upon” the foundation laid by Fraction and Aja rather than merely “emulating” or, even more uncharitably, “imitating” it, but I’ve gotta be honest and say that the jury’s still out on which way all of that is going to go. All-New Hawkeye #1 throws out some hints in that direction, given that half the story is a flashback to Clint and Barney’s troubled upbringing in an abusive foster home and those pages/scenes feature a remarkably different art style (see below) that showcase Perez tackling the hues on his own with a limited watercolor palette (one that’s, appropriately enough given our hero’s costume, heavy on the purple) over his own “sketchier,” more fluid pencils and inks, but the “present-day” action is a rather bog-standard runaround with the two Hawkeyes busting into a “secret” Hydra base at the behest of S.H.I.E.L.D. for reasons that will, in due course, become fully apparent, I’m sure. It’s fine and dandy stuff, don’t get me wrong, and is more or less exactly what I was hoping to get from this comic, but it’s definitely — well, what is it they say about the sincerest form of flattery again?

In any case, it’s probably fair to guess that “some tinkering around the margins” is all the more leeway that Marvel editorial is willing to give the new creators on this book, at least to start with, and to be honest, that’s probably all that us long-time readers want, too, so I really don’t want to sound too much like I’m bitching here — yeah, I love to see established characters taken in new and surprising directions by writers and artists with a bold and unique vision all their own, but it’s not like that’s what every comic needs all the time.Sure, I’ll be disappointed if Lemire and Perez choose not to develop a more distinctive take on the character at some point (or, even more depressingly, if they’re not allowed to by company “suits”), but I have no problem with them easing us along by means of a somewhat extended transition period. In short, I don’t mind the fact that All-New Hawkeye isn’t all that new just yet.

But it’ll have to be at some point, won’t it? Much as I’ve thoroughly enjoyed what Fraction and Aja have done on their run — and I’m eagerly looking forward to seeing how they wrap it all up with issue #22 — I don’t want a “new” series that feels like a faint approximation of the old, which puts Lemire and Perez in a tricky spot : they’ve gotta prove that they have their own ideas for the book, but they can’t rush the journey from point A to point Z for fear of alienating loyal fans. As of right now, they appear to be taking a “one step at a time approach” — which is exactly right — but if “Wunderkammer” ends up feeling like five issues of them trying to ape their predecessors, with some niftily-illustrated childhood memories added into the mix, well — that’s not gonna make anyone happy, is it? Folks who like constantly-developing-and-evolving characters and narratives will slam them for lack of ambition and/or effort, while folks who openly admit that “same old, same old” is all they’re looking for will rightly ask “why not just leave Fraction and Aja on the book, then?” I’m choosing to remain optimistic for the time being — this debut installment certainly doesn’t give me any reason not to be, I suppose — but it’s definitely a cautious optimism.

Even so, there’s certainly such a thing as over-thinking matters, and maybe by focusing on this series’ potential future, I’m losing out on the chance to feel good about its present state. When I take off my “worry-wart” cap, go with the flow, and appreciate All-New Hawkeye #1 for what it is — rather than, ya know, spending/wasting all my time speculating about what it might be — I have to admit it’s a whole lot of fun.

Committing (To) “Suiciders”

Posted on March 4, 2015 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

When I learned, after reading the first issue of Lee Bermejo’s new monthly Vertigo series Suiciders, that the writer/artist made his home in Italy, I can’t say I was terribly surprised, given that the basic set-up for this book appears to have torn at least a page from spaghetti exploitation stalwart Joe D’Amato’s post-apocalyptic “thrillers” Endgame and 2020 Texas Gladiators, but please don’t get the wrong idea — derivative as the premise here may be, I still think we’re in for a fun and intelligent ride that promises to explore issues of economic inequality and media saturation in a more straightforward way than most mainstream comics, particularly those of a superhero-ish bent, can or would ever dare to. The Vertigo imprint in general appears to be hitting something of a creative stride once again, after far too many years, and while so far sales numbers for their recently-added titles like FBP and Coffin Hill have generally been rather weak, let’s hope they decide to see them through and wait for them to gain an audience, because there’s some very promising stuff coming from the house that Moore, Gaiman, Morrison, et.al. built, and sooner or later the comics-buying public is bound to start paying attention — right?

Well, possibly. Or at least hopefully, at any rate — and you can add Suiciders to the list of new (relatively speaking) Vertigo books that definitely deserve more attention than they’re probably likely to get. Bermejo is certainly a “known quantity” as an artist, given that his detailed, gritty, realistic illustrations have been featured in some rather high-profile DC projects in recent years, most notably the Joker graphic novel and Before Watchmen : Rorschach (both done in collaboration with writer Brian Azzarello), and he was allowed to showcase both his writing and drawing skills on Batman : Noel, so a “solo” monthly of his own was probably due to happen at some point here, but I honestly couldn’t have predicted that he’d tackle his turn in the spotlight with this much confidence and clarity. The world of Suiciders seems to have arrived on comic store shelves fully realized down to the last detail, and even though we’re only given tantalizing glimpses into it here in issue #1, it’s a fairly safe bet that most readers — particularly those with a penchant for “after doomsday” scenarios such as myself — will be left hungry for a whole lot more, even at $3.999 a pop (incidentally, has anyone else noticed Vertigo quietly sneaking more and more of their titles up a dollar? Sure, they usually give you a high-gloss cover for that extra buck you’re laying out, but it’s still a drag).

Here’s a brief rundown of the particulars, for those inclined to know more before they buy : in the future, L.A. has been devastated by a massive earthquake (I guess the whole nuke angle is kinda played out) and in the aftermath of that catastrophe, rather than rebuild per se, the powers that be have just decided to start all over from scratch — for the 1%. Hence, the city has bifurcated into two distinct regions — the glitzy and wealthy New Angeles, and the decimated and impoverished “old city.” It appears that the division isn’t too terribly dissimilar to the prevailing socio-economic structure of apartheid-era South Africa, where blacks far outnumbered whites but had no real voice in government despite doing all the menial labor that the privileged minority counted on for basic survival — and for their trouble, found themelves warehoused in desperately poor, sickeningly inhumane “homelands” on the other side of a fence from their social “betters.” We might think that’s all a thing of the past, I suppose, but the situation in Israel today isn’t much different, with Palestinians living in squalid conditions in the outdoor concentration camp that is Gaza and having to carry a pass and proceed through a security checkpoint to get to their jobs in places like Jeruslaem, Tel Aviv, etc. where they do the blue-collar and service-related work the wealthier, lighter-skinned folks are dependent upon — and it’s not like we’re immune to this sort of de-humanizing bullshit in the US, either, as the rich increasingly flee to mansions in gated “communities” where you have to present ID to gain access, while the poor, whose labor the folks behind gates are both exploiting and in need of, see their inner-city neighborhoods deteriorate further and further at the same time their social safety net is being raided and squandered by the those who already have way more than enough.

What to do to distract the populace from this abhorrent state of affairs? The Romans called it “bread and circuses,” these days we call it pro sports and TV (because we don’t feel the need to keep the peasants fed anymore), and in New Angeles they call it “Suiciding” — a sort of high-tech combination of American Gladiators and MMA fighting that you can definitely see coming down the pipeline in the next 10-to-20 years (if that). The biggest star of the Suicide Ring is a rugged, handsome bruiser known as The Saint, and while he appears to be our ostensible “hero” of the story, Bermejo wisely plays it close to the vest and reveals very little about him beyond the fact that there’s more going on with him than meets the eye. Shit, we don’t even know his real name or anything of substance about his background yet, but you just get a feeling that there are sides to him that his well-oiled PR machine would rather have the public — and, by extension, us readers — kept in the dark about.

The bulk of the action in this debut installment is consumed with The Saint’s latest championship battle, and Bermejo makes you feel every punch and kick with his fluid pacing and high-octane visuals, ably abetted by colorist extraordinaire Matt Hollingsworth, who imbues the penciler/inker’s pages with a radically different, but no less impressive, palette that Barbara Ciardo did on Joker and Before Wathcmen : Rorschach (a book I’m now convinced Bermejo should have written himself because, let’s face it, Azzarello’s script was a lazy, uninspired mess). All in all, the two of them concoct a feast for the eyes here that you’ll find yourself studying in detail for fear of missing anything too intricate, awesome, or both.

But how does it read? Pretty damn well, I’m pleased to report. Bermejo has a solid grip on both characterization and world-building, and the sub-plot that runs concurrent with the main storyline, about a hapless band of refugees looking to sneak into New Angeles to provide a better life for their families, is both believable and repulsive in equal measure. It doesn’t end well (spoiler alert), and you never expect it to (cancel said spoiler alert), but you feel it all the same when tragedy strikes, nonetheless — a sure sign that a writer knows what he or she is doing. Not every script sets out to reinvent the wheel, but when the author is able to get you to invest yourself in their story despite the fact that you know where it’s headed, well , that’s always worthy of a measure of respect, in my book.

And my respect — whatever that’s worth — is definitely something that Bermejo has won back with Suiciders #1. More or less everyone who participated in the Before Watchmen debacle (with the exception of Amanda Conner, who did sublime work — as she always does) saw their reputations knocked down a good few notches in the eyes of many, myself included, but this book is just the right combination of socially aware critique, sci-fi dystopianism, and bad-ass action to keep me hooked for a good long while. There’s a grim, remorseless, polarized, and utterly believable future society beckoning for us to come explore it in these pages, and Bermejo and Hollingsworth are proving themselves, at least to this point, to be excellent tour guides.

Fair warning, though : things look as though they’re gonna get pretty dangerous pretty fast, so I’m thinking some Saint-style body armor will probably be in order if you want to make it out of Suiciders alive.

It’s Love!

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Dazzling Erin

Starting in the late 1940s, many comic book companies tried to broaden their audience by publishing romance comic books. These comics told dramatic love stories in which young women had to deal with issues of cheating, divorce, jealousy, heartache, and the search for the one. With Valentine’s Day approaching, here are some classic romance comic book covers.

Despite with that cover says, this romance doesn’t seem to be ideal.

John certainly looks serious. I hope Doris Bigelow gave her some good advice.

I don’t know how anyone could stay square after seeing that facial hair.

Didn’t anyone in these comics get along with their sister?

Love can drive you crazy.

At least they have something in common.

Like Beyoncé says, put a ring on it…

I love the blue eyeshadow.

Love, fun, and commitment issues on the beach.

I hear Heart Break is lovely this time of year.

I don’t think this is going to work out.

Let Me Play “Postal” Worker For A Minute —

Posted on February 4, 2015 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

One of my favorite things about reviewing comics is finding a hidden gem that no one’s really talking about and doing my part to help spread the word just a bit, and while Top Cow’s new ongoing series Postal (a product of their Minotaur Press sub-imprint) is, in fact, generating at least a little bit of online “buzz,” given that it’s being released, as ever, by Image Comics, it’s understandably finding itself rather buried under all the hoopla surrounding the debut issue of Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham’s Nameless, which also comes out today. It’s probably not fair to say that Nameless is sucking all of the oxygen out of the room, but — well, it’s coming pretty close. So let’s do what we can to even the scales a bit here, shall we?

I’ll admit right off the bat to not being much of a fan of Top Cow’s “shared universe” titles, but they’ve published some interesting workset outside of its confines lately, and in particular I found myself intrigued by their recent four-part “eco-thriller” mini-series Wildfire, which was written by Matt Hawkins (who’s probably more talented than his status as a Top Cow “suit” would lead knee-jerk readers to believe) and illustrated in superb fashion by Linda Sejic, so given that much of the Wildfire crew has re-assembled itself for Postal (Hawkins is co-writing it along with Bryan Hill while Sejic is doing the covers and colorist extraordinaire Betsy Gonia is joining in on both the covers and interior pages), I was bound to give at least the first issue a look — and my oh my am I glad I did.

Postal is an exercise in fairly comprehensive “world-building” that centers on the fictional town of Eden, Wyoming (population 2,198) as seen through the eyes of local mailman Mark Shiffron. Mark’s got an unusual perspective given that he suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, and while characters with Asperger’s have certainly appeared in comics pages before (most notably in the form of American Splendor‘s Toby Radloff), this marks, at least to my knowledge, the first time one of them has been given center stage in any considerable way. Three cheers to Hawkins and Hill for doing a bit of trailblazing, then — and for absolutely “nailing it” in terms of Mark’s ongoing interior monologue as well as his dialogue and mannerisms — but how’s the story itself, apart from that?

So far, so good, I’m pleased to report — the “secret” Eden is built on (which I’ll refrain from “spoiling” here) is given away maybe a bit too early (it may have made for a nice cliffhanger “revelation” at the end rather than a “gotcha” moment halfway through the issue), but given the necessity of getting the murder mystery that’s apparently at the heart of the story rolling, I can understand why they structured the script the way they did. Apart from that, though, I have absolutely zero complaints about the quality of the writing here. Eden is a town populated by rich and diverse characters, and most of the notable ones are given a chance to make at least something of a mark in the story, with the back-matter “trading-card style” profiles at the end of the book serving to enhance our knowledge of them rather than acting as a crutch. These are all individuals you’re going to want to know more about, and I can’t really think of the last time that a series with such a large, ensemble cast arrived on the scene as well-thought-out as this one.

As for the art, it comes our way courtesy of relative newcomer Isaac Goodhart, who won Top Cow’s “new talent search” contest last year and is certainly deserving of a regular monthly gig. His style won’t bowl you over with its flashiness or anything (thank goodness), but he’s got a seasoned eye for visual storytelling and seems equally at home illustrating both the book’s slower, “talky” scenes and its dramatic, “high impact” pages. Postal has much the same “rural noir” feel as fellow Image series Revival, and Goodhart breathes a lot of life into the characters he’s drawing by imbuing each of them with unique visual “tics” and traits that make them instantly stand out. I’m probably not the first person to make this comparison and I doubt I’ll be the last, but the pacing and flow of the story and pictures here are also reminiscent of a number of early Vertigo books, and that’s pretty high praise indeed for both the writing and the art.

Yeah, okay, so murder mysteries have certainly been done to death across all media, but when you populate a well-worn premise with unique and memorable characters and set it in an inventive locale, there’s a great chance that you’ll still be able to squeeze blood from a rock. I’m ready to go Postal — you should be, too.

Am I Woman Enough To Survive “Bitch Planet” ?

Posted on February 3, 2015 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Right off the bat, the answer to the question I pose in the headline here is a definitive “no,” simply because — well, I’m not a woman. And the interstellar penal colony that is the setting for writer Kelly Sue DeConnick and artist Valentine De Landro’s new Image Comics series, Bitch Planet, looks like kind of a rough place, so even if I could get in, it’s doubtful that I’d make it out alive.

Tell you what, though — I’m lucky. There’s just no way I could ever be sentenced to do time there, and not only because it’s fictitious. See, the BP is a special place reserved for only female convicts, and it houses the worst of the worst. Terrorists. Hardened killers. Bloodthirsty axe-murderers. Psychotic sexual deviants.

Just kidding — it’s where a future patriarchy sends its “non-compliant” second-class citizens who are guilty of such “crimes” as not getting the dishes done, being bad cooks, not “putting out” as often as their old man wants (or in the way that he wants), or even just getting too old to fit society’s standards of “attractiveness” anymore. Don’t ask me how future Earth got to be so relentlessly misogynistic, but I’m betting Mike Huckabee was elected president at some point and things just sorta slid from there.

As I’m sure is no doubt obvious by now, Bitch Planet is a comic with a definite point of view, and that’s certainly something that’s all too rare in today’s milquetoast, “be careful not to offend anyone” marketplace. De Connick is crafting an unabashedly feminist sci-fi action story here, and to call it a breath of fresh air is quite the understatement. The first issue landed like a ton of bricks last month and got everybody talking, and the second issue, wherein our creators limn the boundaries of the world they’re crafting in a bit more detail and introduce the ever-popular element of TV bloodsports, shows that nobody’s going to be taking their foot off the gas anytime soon here. They’re determined to give us material that’s as thought-provoking as it is exciting every 30 days, and I couldn’t be happier.

That being said — I think at least a hat-tip is owed to fellow feminist comics scribe Alex de Campi, who explored some of these same themes in a two-part story called “Prison Ship Antares” that she did last year as part of her Grindhouse : Doors Open At Midnight mini-series for Dark Horse, and utilized some of the same “B-movie” stylistic trappings that De Connick and De Landro employ to such stunning effect here. The politics of Bitch Planet, however, are much more overt, and we all know that ideas take a fair amount of time to go from the brain to the printed page, so just who thought of what first is an open question. I simply thought it was worth mention — just as I think both books are well worth your time and money.

Now then — since trying to take an “objective” look at BP without its jubilantly-stated viewpoint entering into the discussion is an exercise in futility, let me just say this : if you’ve got a problem with feminism, for whatever reason, this isn’t the comic for you. De Connick’s overriding ambition with her story is to take dead aim at patriarchy and fire a kill shot. That doesn’t mean that men should feel threatened by this book’s contents by any means, of course — provided you’re the sort of guy who’s honest enough to admit that our entire social structure is still bent toward keeping women, to one degree or another, “in their place.” The fluffy sense of faux- sexual-equality we’re spoon-fed by the media is a lie, and if owning up to that reality offends you, then Bitch Planet will probably offend you even more. But ya know what? Some people deserve to be offended.

Think about it, guys : when was the last time we had to put up with leering glances from strangers or cat-calls on the street? When was the last time we had to answer to our employers for our health care choices? When was the last time we were judged on the basis of our physical appearance before anything else is taken into consideration? When was the last time we were told that we didn’t have to be paid as much as someone of the opposite sex for doing the exact same work?

Geez, when you look at things that way, maybe the out-of-control phallo-centric future on display in these pages isn’t so much an exaggeration of the current state of affairs as it is a reflection of them — albeit one where all the pretense is stripped away.

Clearly, though, the term “feminism” is one that means different things to different people, and the really cool thing about what De Connick is doing here is that she acknowledges that fact and is trying her level best, in both the script and the book’s idea-crammed back matter (overseen and assembled with the help of series editor Lauren Sankovitch, who used to work at Marvel but has now apparently gone freelance) to present multiple perspectives of current feminist thought. Sure, we can probably all agree that at its core, feminism is about empowering women to make whatever choices they want in life and about respecting those choices, but how we get there from here, and what’s preventing it from happening, is open for much debate and discussion. De Connick certainly has ideas about all of it, but she’s opening up the pages of her comic to “let it all hang out,” so to speak, which makes for a damn engrossing cover-to-cover read (and those back covers! Oh my how I do love ’em!)

Women of color are front and center here, as well, in the form of both series protagonist Kamau Kogo and “instant-fan-favorite” character Penny Rolle, who’s probably got a thing or two (or more) to say about size-acceptance issues, I’m prepared to bet. It also seems more likely than not (although it’s only a guess at this point) that homophobia and transphobia will be working their way onto the Bitch Planet radar screen before too long, as this series also seems tailor-made for addressing those particular (and persistent) societal ills.

And the art — oh my, the art! De Connick has come under at least a little bit of criticism for doing this book with a male artist, but apparently De Landro has been a full involved co-creator from the outset, he’s very much “on board,” philosophically speaking, with everything that’s going on here, and his passion for the subject shows in every panel. The double-splash title pages are a thing of beauty, to be sure, but it’s not like he’s “slacking” anywhere else. Add in the superb colors of Chris Peter and you’ve got a comic that’s quite often breathtaking to look at (yes, it’s still okay to judge a comic based on looks — just not people).

I’ve been around the comics scene for a long time, and the strides toward inclusiveness that fandom has made have been significant. Even as little as ten years ago it was unusual to see a woman in a comic store, and now look — we’ve got books like Bitch Planet proving that female creators, and readers, aren’t about to take a back seat to anyone. But let’s not mistake progress for “problem solved.” The very existence of this series proves that we’ve come a long a long way, sure, but its raison d’etre lies in showing us just how far we still have to go and challenging us to come up with ways of getting there. Sure, I’m not a woman (as we’ve already established), but I’m proud to throw my lot in with the team behind this comic as be as loudly and proudly non-compliant as any of them.

George Romero Closes A Chapter — And Leaves Plenty Of Threads Hanging — In “Empire Of The Dead : Act Two” #5

Posted on January 14, 2015 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

And so we find ourselves at the close of another act of what is proving to the longest-form epic to ever come from the mind and pen of the father of the modern zombie genre with George Romero’s Empire Of The Dead Act Two #5, and underneath Alexander Lozano’s absolutely superb pulp-inspired cover painting we find that the guy who started it all is ending this one on a decidedly more small-scale — and downbeat — note than the “looming disaster” finale he gave us in his first act.

Not that disaster isn’t still looming — it certainly is, and it’s more mystery-shrouded than ever, but just when everything — and I do mean everything — seems to be boiling over in this issue, Romero takes a side-step, dials back on the danger, and gives us a genuinely personal and frankly tragic cliffhanger to send this five-issue arc out on.I won’t say much more about the finale beyond that since the book just came out today and the few of you out there who are, like myself, following this comic in singles every month may not have had a chance to read it yet, but you may want to prepare yourself to get a little bit choked up come the last page.

What’s most surprising to me about the contrasting tones between the finales of the premier and secondary acts of this developing story, though, is how much more free-flowing, naturalistic, and dare I say even nochalant the fifth issue of Empire Act Two is in comparison to the fifth issue of Empire Act One. There was a sense during the in the concluding chapter of the first arc that Romero was rushing to fit a number of pieces into place and making up for lost time due to some early floundering he engaged in, script-wise, in issues two (especially) and three, whereas here his approach has been a lot more calm and methodical. He’s trusting his characters to take us along with them rather than shoe-horning them into place, and while that may result in a somewhat less “stupendous” conclusion this time around, it means that the entirety of the second act has played out much more evenly than the first. In short, he’s getting a little bit better at this as he goes.

Yeah, okay, the “big revelation” Paul Barnum finally clues Dr. Penny Jones in on is something that we all saw coming from a mile off, but there are still a few surprises to be had here, most notably in the discslosure of a prior relationship between Barnum and somebody extremely close to Mayor Chandrake , and Chandrake proves himself to be an even bigger bastard than we already thought in one scene, so it’s not like everything here is cut-and-dried predictable up until those final few panels. Chandrake’s entire world seems to be in serious danger of crumbling down around him, in fact, as his inability to deal with rival candidate “Chilly” Dobbs calls into question how much efficacy he really has left in him while the investigations of Detective “Bucky” Perez are getting closer and closer to unraveling the thread that might undo the whole ball. The main question our dogged cop is now pursuing : why are kids being loaded up onto buses when there are no more public schools (guess Chandrake’s a Republican) — and why are they never coming back?

Getting back to those aforementioned final few panels for a moment — one thing that does reduce their impact somewhat is the inking. While I’ve just about gotten used to Dalibor Talajic’s pencil art on this series, and have generally welcomed the addition of inker Rick Magyar, apparently Magyar ran into some deadline trouble with this issue (hey, it happens) and the last four pages are inked by Goran Sudzuka, who employs a mush heavier and less detailed approach with his brush that results in a more blocky, “cartoonish” style. For a few pages here and there I wouldn’t gripe much, but Sudzuka’s work seriously detracts from the impact of the heart-wrenching cliffhanger here, and that’s a real shame.

So — I guess we’ll see where this book goes, art-wise, when it returns for Act Three in April, but I’m feeling more confident than ever in Romero’s storytelling. There are big things ahead, folks, and if you haven’t been following along, catching up with this series by way of trade paperback —the second of which comes out next month — is definitely a smart move, as the next arc promises to be out-and-out explosive.

Marvel’s “Star Wars” #1 Is An Exercise In Mediocrity

Posted on January 14, 2015 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

I take a look at the much-anticipated first issue of Marvel’s new monthly “Star Wars” comic series.

Trash Film Guru

So this is it. After months of relentless hype and build-up, the opening salvo of Dis/Mar’s full-spectrum Star Wars dominance has arrived in the form of the new Star Wars #1 from Marvel Comics. Get ready for more, of course — the year-long lead-up to the new SW flick, The Force Awakens, is going to get positively deafening. We’ve only just begun.

And the four-color page seems a natural enough place to start things off, given that the second Disney purchased Lucasfilm lock, stock, and barrel it was obvious where the Star Wars license was going to go once Dark Horse’s deal for the property expired at the end of 2014. Marvel is using “back home” as their motto not only for this series, but the solo series featuring Darth Vader, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, et. al. to come, and while it’s true that they were the…

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“Wolf Moon” Is Worth Howling About

Posted on January 7, 2015 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Holy shit — whoever thought cartooning would turn out to be one of the world’s most dangerous occupations?

The comics world is obviously in a state of shock and mourning — as is, indeed, much of the world in general — following the brutal murder of 12 employees of a well-regarded French satirical newspaper, four of whom were cartoonists, presumably by a handful of armed, masked Islamic fundamentalist extremists earlier today, and while now probably wouldn’t be the best time to comment on the wider cultural, as well as socio-political, implications of this shocking mass murder, let me just say that a climate of fear and ignorance is usually at the root of violent acts of intimidation like this, and that whatever Muslims you may know personally are more than likely to be just as horrified and appalled at today’s events as you are, if not moreso, because chances are they’ll be treated with an even greater level of undeserved suspicion than they already are. It’s probably no secret to those of you who read my posts even semi-regularly that I’m not a big fan of any religious belief system of any sort, but we didn’t go around treating Catholics like shit after IRA bombings in the UK and we should extend that same courtesy to Muslims here in the US, who had absolutely nothing to do with this insanely brutal crime.

I would also hope that it should go without saying that an act based in fear and ignorance shouldn’t be responded to with fear and ignorance, since all that does is up the ante, so let’s hope the French government doesn’t decide that the best way to deal with this is by, I dunno — invading countries that had nothing to do with it and torturing non-existent “information” out of impoverished goat herders and random street kids.

Really — no government would be that stupid, would they? Errrrrr—- wait a sec —

In any case, the good news is that the owner of the paper in Paris has said that he will not be intimidated by this act and that he’s going to continue publishing. That much we can all agree upon as being both courageous, and the right thing to do.

Still, the tone of discussion at my local comic shop was definitely somber today, and our thoughts go out to all affected by this tragedy. Fortunately, after a couple of depressing hours in front of the tube watching these events unfold, I was able to distract myself with my new pile of purchases today, some of which were even — gasp! — good, the standout among them being the second issue of writer Cullen Bunn and artist Jeremy Haun’s new six-part horror series from Vertigo, Wolf Moon.

Bunn, of course, has been a talent well worth keeping an eye on for some time, with The Sixth Gun from Oni Press and his recently-completed The Empty Man from Boom! Studios garnering extremely positive reviews — hell, folks even tell me that his work on Marvel’s ongoing Magneto monthly is pretty good stuff — while Haun, for his part, seems to be a guy whose work everyone likes a lot, but who hasn’t found a steady gig month-in-and-month-out since leaving DC’s Batwoman along with J.H. Williams III due to editorial short-sightedness of the highest order (it’s probably worth noting that the creators Williams and Haun were replaced with on Batwoman have driven the book down so far so fast that it was recently cancelled). Pair these two with veteran colorist Lee Loughride, then, and I think it’s fair to see that we’re looking at an “A-list” assemblage of talent here.

And hey — isn’t it about time that Vertigo got back to doing some honest-to-goodness horror comics, anyway? I mean, for a line that was built on titles like Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, and Sandman (which was widely considered to be a horror book before the term “dark fantasy” was in common parlance), they sure seem to have done their level best to avoid the genre in recent years.

Fortunately for us all, that drought appears to be over, and Bunn and Haun are crafting a very tense and atmospheric werewolf-story-with-a-twist here — that twist being that the werewolf spirit passes on from one victim to the next rather than staying put in a single host the whole time. The second issue even expands on this theory as our protagonist/former werewolf host, Dillon Chase — who’s on something of a holy mission to stop the wolf spirit before it kills again — gets in touch with a scholar on the subject (and former host himself) who posits a connection between lycanthropy and Native American “skin walker” legends.

The breezy scripting style Bunn employs and Haun’s tight, no-frills, character-focused art both have something of an “old school horror comic” feel to them, and you could just as easily imagine this book being drawn by the likes of, say, Tom Sutton, if he were still with us, or Bernie Wrightson, if his health were good enough, and while I don’t mean to say that our guy Jeremy’s work is “as good as” the legendary output of those two masters of the medium, it certainly works for this series despite the lack of intricate linework those just-mentioned names (along with others like Mike Ploog) almost always brought to the table.

In short, it’s suitably creepy and meshes well with an equally-creepy script. The covers so far have been top-notch, as well, with Jae Lee — whose work I usually actively dislike — capturing the look and feel of the act of werewolf transformation quite nicely with the main cover to issue one, Haun giving us something of a “drifter movie”-inspired variant for that issue, and Ryan Kelly doing great justice to both our protagonist and his migrating-werewolf adversary with his much-more-imaginatively-constructed-than-action-pose-images-usually-are cover for the second installment.

Honestly, I’m digging this book so much at this (admittedly early) juncture that my only gripe is the $3.99 cover price. Yeah, at least DC/Vertigo give you a high-gloss cover and a little bit better paper stock on their four dollar books than Marvel’s cheap-ass, melt-all-over-your-hands monthly product, but still — I’d sacrifice the spiffy package for a $2.99 price point on this title in a minute. “It costs too damn much” is a charge you can level at pretty much every comic coming out these days, though, so if that’s the only knock I can come up with against Wolf Moon, odds are that this is one book you should definitely check out.