Category: Reviews

Review: ‘That Salty Air’ by Tim Sievert

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That Salty Air
Tim Sievert
Top Shelf, 2008, $10.00

For a book about the sea, [[[That Salty Ai]]]r feels awfully Minnesotan. (Or maybe I’m just reacting to the underlying Norwegian-ness of both Minnesota and Sievert’s story – but there is something hard and dour and northern about That Salty Air.)

Maryann and Hugh are a young couple who live in a lonely cabin by the sea, and whose main source of income seems to be fishing. One day, the postman delivers two letters from the local doctor – it’s immediately clear that Maryann’s letter has told her that she’s pregnant, but we get a couple of montages of sea life (red in tooth and claw, for some immediate symbolism) before Hugh gets his letter.

From it, he learns that his mother has drowned, and he immediately turns against the sea, blaming it for her death. Really, he curses the sea and throws a rock, beaning an important squid far below (which action will be important later). Hugh curses his life, runs off to town to get drunk, and generally behaves badly through the middle of the book, while Maryann sits at home, trying to keep things together.

She also hasn’t gotten a chance to tell Hugh she’s pregnant yet, since he flew off the handle so quickly and so completely. He eventually does come back, and they reconcile, with each other and with the sea…more or less.

That Salty Air is an exceptionally symbolic story, very obviously so. Sievert is clearly young and energetic, and I expect he’ll be someone to reckon with once he settles down a bit. This particular book has a lot of strong points – the particulars of characterization, the evocation of a particular landscape, the inky blacks and assured panel-to-panel transitions – but its story made this reader roll his eyes more than once. It’s a bit much to swallow.

But, on the other hand, it’s only ten bucks for over a hundred pages of comics by a real talent. It’s hard to beat that. And I expect Sievert’s next book will add some subtlety to the already impressive strengths of That Salty Air. He’s definitely a talent to watch.


Andrew Wheeler has been a publishing professional for nearly twenty years, with a long stint as a Senior Editor at the Science Fiction Book Club and a current position at John Wiley & Sons. He’s been reading comics for longer than he cares to mention, and maintains a personal, mostly book-oriented blog at antickmusings.blogspot.com.

Publishers who would like their books to be reviewed at ComicMix should contact ComicMix through the usual channels or email Andrew Wheeler directly at acwheele (at) optonline (dot) net.

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Review: ‘Three Shadows’ by Cyril Pedrosa

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This book will break your heart; I warn you now.

Three Shadows
Cyril Pedrosa
First Second, 2008, $15.95

Louis and Lise are farmers somewhere quiet and untouched, doting parents to their small son Joachim. Their life is bucolic, idyllic: “Back then…life was simple and sweet. Everything was simple and sweet…The taste of cherries, the cool shade, the fresh smell of the river… That was how we lived, in a vale among the hills…sheltered from storms…Ignorant of the world, as though on an island…Peaceful and untroubled…Then everything changed.”

Three figures appear ominously one evening, on horseback at the horizon. Somehow, everyone knows that they’re trouble, but they can’t be confronted. They disappear into the mist, into the distance. Joachim’s dog Diego disappears, and the shadows use his barking to lure the boy – and almost get him.

So Lise goes to the nearest big town to consult with Mistress Pike, whose sign reads “Midwife. Exorcist. Sympathetic Ear.” The truth is what they fear most: the shadows have come for Joachim. And they’re not going to stop.

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Review: ‘The Education of Hopey Glass’

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There’s something effortless about the comics of Jaime Hernandez. Both in storytelling and art, his Love and Rockets books glide smoothly, seamlessly along – perfect little vignettes into imagined lives.

This isn’t to say Hernandez doesn’t work hard at his craft. Take a deeper look at efforts like his latest collection, The Education of Hopey Glass (Fantagraphics, $19.99) and the attention to detail becomes eminently clear. But unless you will yourself toward that cause, it’s only too easy to slide right into the story and only come up for a breath when the last page has been flipped.

The first half of Hopey Glass is a particularly good example. More than just a glimpse into an unsettled life, Hernandez casts Hopey as a deeply shallow young woman suffering in the transition into adulthood, maturity and responsibility.

When her hedonistic impulses butt up against her new job as a teacher’s assistant, Hopey faces the pull of each world, and her anguish is palpable.

The book falters, though, when it suddenly drops that story and picks up the journey of Ray in his quest for women and success. While still a quality piece of comics, it’s much less compelling than Hopey’s story. And so the book as a whole becomes an incomplete puzzle, a collection of great but unfinished pieces.

Review: ‘Batman: The Killing Joke’ Deluxe Edition

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As I picked up a copy of the new Batman: The Killing Joke 20th anniversary hardcover, I flicked open the first page and sliced my finger on its edge. The paper cut seemed fitting, a physical manifestation of the violence contained within the book.

What I always forget about this story in the few-year intervals between readings is just how short it is, at 46 pages. And so each time I’m amazed all over again at how Alan Moore and Brian Bolland teamed to pack such intensity, ferocity and (surprise, surprise) humanity into those pages.

The Killing Joke is without question one of the greatest encounters between Batman and his nemesis, and the real reason is that the story serves both as a zenith for the Joker’s depravity and for his pathos. Even if this origin story isn’t true (as Bolland writes in his afterword), Moore shows a trace of a person behind the maniacal grin. It makes a Joker that’s more real, and more terrifying.

This new edition ($17.99) is of note for the top-notch packaging as well as Bolland’s re-coloring (see the differences between new and old right here). I’m sure there are those who hate the changes simply because it’s different, but the new colors really do improve the book, giving it a subtlety and grimness not present in the original.

The only additional features are a few of Bolland’s sketches and a new short story from him about wanting to murder Batman. It’s not bad, per se, but doesn’t add to the main story and comes across like padding. I suppose it’s a necessary inclusion, though. I mean, 46 pages!

Review: ‘Jenny Finn’ and ‘The Stardust Kid’

Boom! Studios has made a name for itself as a comic book version of the Spike TV network, but this week the publisher released two new collections that step away from that formula.

jenny-finn_tpb-1-2427366The first, Jenny Finn: Doom Messiah ($14.99) is a collection of the three original Jenny Finn issues and the all new fourth and concluding chapter. The book is written by Mike Mignola and is his truest channeling of Lovecraft yet. In fact, the story closely echoes one of Lovecraft’s stories (I forget the name) about a fishing town being invaded by mysterious sea creatures.

That’s not to say the story isn’t original – it’s more elaborate and bizarre, with typical Mignola flourishes, like the constant appearance of fish that mutter, "Doom."

The narrative is simple enough – an average Joe finds himself mired in otherworldly terror and tries to fight (and think) his way out of it – but the plot never falls into stereotype and every few pages brings a new surprise.

Troy Nixey served as artist on the first three issues and perfectly captures the ethereal horror of Mignola’s script (and, thankfully, doesn’t ape Mignola’s artistic style). Farel Dalrymple illustrated the fourth chapter, and while I love his work, this probably isn’t the best project for him.

That bit of criticism aside, Jenny Finn is a great piece of haunted fun. And I forgot the best part: plenty of tentacles.

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Review: Terry Brooks’ ‘Dark Wraith of Shannara’

Dark Wraith of Shannara
By Terry Brooks, Illustrated by Edwin David, Adapted by Robert Place Napton
Del Rey, 2008, $13.95

I am morally sure that the following conversation took place somewhere, among some people, before this book came into existence:

“It’s not fair! All of those other fantasy writers are getting comics based on their books!”

“Yeah! Why Salvatore and Hamilton but not Brooks?”

“What do they have that he hasn’t got? He’s at least as popular as Feist!”

I have no idea who said it, or who they said it to, but, somehow, the influence of the Dabel Brothers has led to ever more epic fantasy writers getting the urge (or maybe just the contract) to create graphic novels based on their work.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that; American comics have been a closed guys-in-tights shop for a generation now, and anything that opens that up is nice. But it is a bit weird, personally, when the two sides of my world collide quite so violently.

Dark Wraith of Shannara, unlike most of the recent epic fantasy comics out there, doesn’t adapt anything; it’s a brand-new story set in Terry Brooks’s very famous (and very bestselling) world of Shannara. For continuity geeks – and aren’t we all that, about something? – this takes place soon after the end of the novel The Wishsong of Shannara, and involves much of the cast of that book. Wishsong is the third of the original Shannara “trilogy:” they’re nothing like a trilogy, despite being three books about members of the same family published relatively quickly and all having the word “Shannara” in the title, but fantasy fans will call any conglomeration of three books a trilogy if you don’t stop them with heavy armament.

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Review: ‘Life Sucks’ by Abel, Soria and Pleece

It doesn’t seem a stretch to assume every possible vampire story has been done, from the classics to Anne Rice’s romanticizations to the modern Blade to the self-obsessed Shadow of the Vampire to the Dracula: Dead and Loving It spoof.

I won’t claim that Life Sucks (First Second, $19.95) is jaw-droppingly revolutionary, no. But it does deliver a riff on vampires that hasn’t been seen before.

To put it bluntly, Dave is a loser. He’s a wimpy young guy stuck working a dead-end job at an LA convenience store, and he’s in love with a goth girl who doesn’t know he exists. On top of all that, he’s a vampire, which just makes the life of the former-vegetarian all the more miserable.

The story of Life Sucks began several years ago when co-writers Jessica Abel and Gabe Soria were talking about vampires and wondered what it would be like for a young vampire stuck in the real world. After all, vampires don’t just start out with a big castle and tons of wealth, Soria told me.

Like a typical young adult, Dave is just starting out and trying to establish a life for himself. The vampire angle adds to his difficulties (despite a few cool powers), with the need to hide from sunlight, forage for blood and obey his master, Count Radu, the old vampire who infected him and owns the convenience store where Dave works.

Instead of obsessing with drudgery, the authors craft a simple but effective story of Dave’s pursuit of love, one that becomes expectedly complicated given the indie comics background of Abel. Life Sucks works because it’s a good little yarn about young adulthood, with the vampire angle serving more than anything as extra flavoring.

The art, by Warren Pleece, is appropriately grounded and manages to stay lively even during lulls in action. I interviewed him about his work on the book a little back, which you can read right here.

Review: ‘Tonoharu: Part One’

In works of fiction, I always appreciate stories that know exactly what they want to be and strive toward that identity. In other words, some books are best served by not aspiring to great pretensions.

In the case of Tonoharu: Part One (Pliant Press, $19.95) I have to eat my words, as it’s a book that perfectly accomplishes what it wants to do and still falls flat.

Creator Lars Martinson gives a fictional account of serving as an English teacher in a small Japanese town, something Martinson actually did. A prologue establishes the central character, Dan Wells, as the man who held Martinson’s post right before him (it never mentions if Dan is a real person).

As the two meet at the book’s start, Martinson describes Dan as having an "ever-present look of defeat on his face." He’s something of a Biff Loman in an international setting.

Dan’s problem is that by coming to Japan, he has cut himself off from the people, culture and language he knows. His job offers no challenges, his social life offers no prospects, so every day becomes a matter of waiting out the clock.

Martinson does a thorough job of creating this cesspool of mundanity through the painfully droll dialogue, the lazing pace of the plot and the two-toned artwork. Martinson inks in an impressive layer of detail, and even that serves to entrench the book more firmly in the boring paraphernalia of everyday life.

There is conflict, but not of man against man or man against himself. It is Dan against the sheer, painful nothingness of his existence. And that leads to a second conflict: this reviewer against Tonoharu‘s gentle urge toward sleep.

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Review: ‘The Last Days of Krypton’ by Kevin J. Anderson

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Everyone knows the basic story of [[[Superman]]]. Baby Kal-El, last survivor of the planet Krypton, rocketed to Earth by his parents Lara and Jor-El, found by a nice couple in Kansas, raised to be Clark Kent AKA Superman. But what about the story of Krypton before Kal’s birth? What about the lives of his biological parents?

In this hardcover novel published by Harper Entertainment, Kevin J. Anderson ([[[Captain Nemo]]], [[[Hopscotch]]], [[[Star Wars: Darksaber]]]) gives us a story of the ill-fated planet and its people, who are so tranquil and advanced in science that they have stopped dreaming and questioning reality. One man, Jor-El, still dares to dream — but finds his technology constantly censored by the Science Council and by Commissioner Zod. Eventually, Jor-El meets someone much like him, an artist named Lara Lor-Van who never hesitates to speak her mind, and the two fall in love. When disasters begin to occur, Jor-El and Zod may have to join forces to save their planet from destruction. But is Zod really concerned about the benefit of Krypton or is he plotting his own take-over?

In the foreword to this novel, comic writer Marv Wolfman (New Teen Titans, The Crisis On Infinite Earths) stated that Kevin J. Anderson’s goal was to create a story that took elements from all of the various and contradictory interpretations of the planet Krypton, its society and just why it was destroyed. (Did the sun go supernova, was it destroyed by a shifting orbit or was it a victim of a war involving terrible weapons?) The result would then be a tale that would allow everyone to at least find one or two familiar elements and would be entertaining for people who knew very little about the Superman mythos.

Unfortunately, that is not quite what we get. But more on that later. First, I should mention there are many good scenes here and there, as well as some touching moments. Of particular note is Anderson’s version of the first meeting between Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van. It involves danger and nice characterization and the date that it leads into shows just why these two fall for each other. Too often these days, we are shown a couple who are in love but who don’t really show this in their actions, requiring the writer/director to spell things out by having their characters awkwardly say things such as “I’m blinded by your love.” (Are you listening, George Lucas?!)

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Review: Jughead’s Double Digest #138

So there I was, at Midtown Comics, one of New York City’s better-racked shops, trying to find something my wife was looking for. That’s the only way you could get me into a comics shop on a Tuesday, the day before the new stuff is put on the shelves. Since I was there, I looked at everything else as well… and came across [[[Jughead’s Double Digest #138]]], a beneath-the-radar book that some will find of note.

This is the issue before the beginning of their latest “new-look” story, this time drawn by my pals Joe Staton and Al Milgrom, so I gave it a second glance. Above the logo, in type too small to be visible in the reproduction I cribbed from Archie’s website, is the phrase “Collectors (sic) Issue Featuring Jughead #1, 1949.” The cover art promised a story where the 2008 Jughead meets up with his 1949 counterpart. The one who only owned one shirt.

Unless you’ve been scouring the ComicMix comments sections lately, it is possible you are unaware that the Archie line is one of the best-selling newsstand comics ventures of our time. In fact, since their digests are available at most supermarket checkouts, they provide an unparalleled portal into the world of comics. Because their content appeals to readers of all sexes and age groups, they appeal to a group Marvel and DC barely acknowledge: the younger reader.

I should point out that Archie is also the last of the publishing houses still controlled by the family of its original owners. That comes across quite clearly in their editorial content, which is quite respectful of its roots.

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