Hey folks, Ambush Bug here with an extra special Spinner Rack to the Future for you. Usually we spin the old rack on Mondays in our regular SHOOT THE MESSENGER column, but we’ve got a special peek at the new DETECTIVE COMICS #854 which features the debut of the Batwoman as its star. Check out this extra special preview from Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III in stores today!!!

DETECTIVE COMICS #854

Writer: Greg Rucka
Art: J.H. Wiliams III
Publisher: DC Comics
Release Date: Today!

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Rush out today and snag this one up. Williams’ art looks fantastic and with Rucka on story duty, there’s no doubt I’ll be picking up DETECTIVE COMICS #854 when I get to my local comics shoppe today!

@@@@ Puppet Publishing Partnership Publicized: The Jim Henson Company and Archaia Comics Form Graphic Novel Publishing Partnership @@@@

Hey guys, Prof. Challenger here. In this modern era of a comics industry in the midst of the information explosion, how does a relatively new publisher (founded in 2002) draw attention to itself in a crowded and publicity-crazed market? Well, in Archaia’s case, you establish yourself as the publisher of choice for creator-owned works by innovative and avant-garde independent storytellers working within the comic book and graphic novel medium. Then you rack up a series of Eisner awards as affirmation. All of which is a very nice way to establish oneself within the comics industry, but when that same upstart little publisher announced on Monday, June 22, 2009 that they had entered into a multi-year partnership with The Jim Henson Company, Archaia jumped instantly to an entirely different level of publishing gravitas.

In fact, a move like this requires a bit more than a simple press release to do it justice. So, I sat down and had a conversation with a couple of guys who could shed a little more light on this project, Joe LeFavi, Director of Publishing and Development at The Jim Henson Company and Stephen Christy, Archaia’s Director of Development. When asked to expand on how this “partnership” is different than your standard “licensing” deal in which a TV series or a film is licensed to a publisher to do a graphic adaptation or sequel, Joe explained that in terms of a partnership, it is “not just licensing, but a whole new creative outlet” for The Jim Henson Company. In fact, this new partnership specifically does not impact Henson’s existing licensing deals with other publishers such as their FARSCAPE series published by BOOM! and their continuing DARK CRYSTAL manga series at Tokyopop. Their goal in entering into this partnership with Archaia is to try and create a publishing partnership that has not ever truly been seen in the industry before. This means that the storytellers, concept artists, and the entire creative segment of Henson is working together with the creative artists and writers brought in by Archaia to “build comics and graphic novels that are not just adaptations but all original stories based on the original films and TV shows but all designed to feel cohesively a part of the Henson mythologies.” Joe further explained that the exciting aspect of this for Henson is that the graphic novel format allows them to visually explore the worlds of places such as THE DARK CRYSTAL, LABYRINTH, or even FRAGGLE ROCK “in ways we’ve never been able to do before.”

So, in terms of the comics and graphic novels themselves, how exactly is Archaia planning to implement this publishing plan? The first thing that Stephen wanted to point out is that Archaia has until now been solely a creator-owned publisher and this is their first attempt to expand outside of that box. So, the degree of work in putting this together has been extensive. He also wanted to assure the millions of Henson fans (adults and kids) out there that while these stories will be exciting and consistent with the various Henson mythologies, they will be designed and presented so that adults can enjoy them but also “have no problem handing to a 5 to 10 year-old kid.” He also reinforced the fact that the visual look of the different series and graphic novels will maintain an appearance that is consistent with the uniquely recognizable Henson visual styles. “Although, there may be an occasional pinup or cover that may have a different style” when an artist with a unique style but a love of Henson expresses a desire to be involved in this new endeavor, he said. Furthermore, he stressed that the approach that both Henson and Archaia have taken in coming up with story concepts is that “film gives you, at best, about 90 minutes to explore a world, but the graphic novel gives limitless opportunity. It is storytelling in its purest form.”

With plans to unveil the roster of comic talent and specific titles at the San Diego Comic Con this summer, Joe and Stephen were hesitant to give away too much beyond the tentative launch date scheduled for the latter part of this year, but they did share a few things of interest. They would not confirm or deny that they have likeness rights to Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie, who co-starred in LABYRINTH, but they did confirm that they definitely “have the likeness rights to Bowie’s codpiece” from the film. So there is that to look forward to. And I will not get into the details of the offer one of them made to dress as Connelly. That’s just a bit too disturbing to consider.

What both men did want to stress is that the plan right now is for a solid mix of regularly published physical series, original graphic novels, and even some other graphic outlets (likely digital) that will be made available. Joe stressed that the bottom line is that “people will be able to get them,” no matter what their personal reading/viewing preference might be.

From a creative standpoint, readers can expect them to quickly grow beyond works that are strictly derivative of previous Henson projects. In fact, within the first year of publishing, fans can expect “wholly original concepts!” According to Stephen, “creating the new stuff is very exciting, but both the Henson and Archaia brand names mean something and it is daunting to try and come out with stuff that lives up to that.” But first and foremost, the impression I got from my conversation is that both partners in this endeavor are committed to long-term success which means their thinking and planning is also long-term. In the end, to really make an impact on fans both old and new, this is the only way to accomplish it – to love the worlds that Henson creates and the comics/graphic novels medium. Through that love comes an enthusiasm and joy but a strong commitment to professionalism in producing the works and marketing them not just to the current comic book audience but into the mainstream as well where fans of Henson films and TV shows are everywhere. If they can draw those fans into a comic store and draw the comic fans back to the films and DVDs then both companies will consider this a wholly successful partnership. Henson exemplifies creative world-building and modern mythology and Archaia epitomizes the free expression ideal offered by the graphic novel medium. In the end, it is the comic fans who will benefit the most from this new and innovative approach to a multi-media creative partnership between The Jim Henson Company and Archaia Comics.

Prof. Challenger is really Texas artist/writer/editor/researcher/teacher Keith Howell, who recently successfully battled the evil airline industry as he struggled to trek across the great mid-west to Peoria, Illinois where he received the 2009 Farmerphile Award for Best Artwork at FarmerCon IV: The Philip Jose’ Farmer Memorial Gathering. Check out his website which is badly in need of updating at profchallenger.com. and check out all things Farmer at pjfarmer.com. Yes, it’s true, there really are some people who actually like the Prof.

BATMAN: STREETS OF GOTHAM #1

Writer: Paul Dini
Penciler: Dustin Nguyen
With Second Feature: MANHUNTER
Writer: Marc Andreyko
Penciler: Georges Jeanty
Published by: DC Comics
Reviewed by: BottleImp

Pros: Dustin Nguyen’s art—he’s got a great jagged-edge style with a lot of black that fits in perfectly with the Batman’s world. The Firefly as a villain, and his latest gimmick—proof that third-string rogues can be just as effective and interesting (in the proper hands) as the Joker or Two-Face. Paul Dini’s writing—interesting plot so far, good use of characters (see Firefly), and said characters are written as unique voices rather than using generic dialogue. MANHUNTER as a back-up feature—I think it’s a great idea to keep those recently-cancelled heroes in circulation rather than consigning them to the vaults of forgotten heroes, especially Manhunter. DC junkies will remember that Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson’s acclaimed MANHUNTER series from the late 1970s was actually the back-up to DETECTIVE COMICS, so the sense of history here is nice. Plus it gives Andreyko a chance to redeem himself and his character from the horrible, “Mad About You” season finale ending of the MANHUNTER ongoing series that he wrote last year. In fact, I’m probably looking forward to the backup feature more than the Batman story in next month’s issue… which brings me to the cons.

Cons: Does DC really need another Batman title in its lineup?

Batman has become to DC as the X-Men are to Marvel—there are just too damn many titles featuring the same characters on the stands every month. Check this out—DC is currently publishing five in-continuity titles: BATMAN, DETECTIVE COMICS, BATMAN AND ROBIN, THE BOY WONDER and now STREETS OF GOTHAM and two stand-alones: BATMAN: CONFIDENTIAL and ALL-STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN (that is, DC would publish ASBAR if Frank Miller and Jim Lee ever got off their lazy asses to finish their run so that a more professional creative team could take over). It would be a bitch to organize the creative teams on those five main titles during a regular publishing year (and DC’s track record with company-wide organization and communication is not so good lately), but to have this many titles at a time when Batman and Robin are being revamped? And revamped by Grant Morrison, whose FINAL CRISIS miniseries generated so much frustration and confusion for fans and DC staffers?

So now we have Dick Grayson as Batman and Bruce Wayne’s illegitimate son Damien as Robin, and while their dynamic is being explored by Morrison in BATMAN AND ROBIN, the characters are thin-spread over four titles written by other writers who may or may not know what Morrison is doing in his own corner of Gotham City. I dunno, it just seems like it’s another case of a company trying to squeeze every penny from the die-hard Batman reader instead of focusing on telling good circulation-boosting stories in the titles they already had. I’m just worried that DC will end up with another editorial situation where one hand won’t know what the other one is doing, and at the end of it all, the reader will end up losing out.

I’ll just keep my fingers crossed for Dini and Co.

When released from his Bottle, the Imp takes the form of Stephen Andrade, an artist/illustrator/pirate monkey painter from the Northeast. You can see some of his artwork athere. He’s given up comics more times than he can remember. But every time he thinks he's out, they pull him back in.

INVINCIBLE #63

Writer: Robert Kirkman
Art: Ryan Ottley
Publisher: Image Comics
Reviewer: Optimous Douche

Bold, brutal, and quite frankly, a beautiful sight to behold – and that’s just the cover. What lies between the glossy stock was one of the most heart-stopping and intense issues ever to grace the comic book shelf, and the pinnacle of the wonderful ride that has been INVINCIBLE. There are a few key spoilers ahead so tread carefully.

Kirkman continues to destroy the INVINCIBLE world in this third part of “Conquest”, or as I like to think of it Viltrumite vengeance. This book was slathered, smothered, covered and buttered with some of the juiciest and most uncomfortable carnage I have ever laid eyes on. From the macroscopic demise of the entire globe to the microscopic obliteration of Invincible’s world, this book will never be the same (unless of course Mark makes a deal with Mephisto – I’m foreshadowing the big reveal here folks stay with me). Kirkman plotted this thing like a metronome. Every beat was precious and added to the overall building tension. Every snap of femur or friction melting of skin gave me a phantom pain in the same place. I’ve been reading INVINCIBLE steadily (after getting caught up on trades) for about two years now and I was more moved by this cataclysm than the recent lackluster end of say a certain Ultimate Web Slinger who I have read for a hell of a lot longer.

INVINCIBLE fans will feel one of two ways about the big reveal of this book. For those like me who enjoyed Kirkman exploring his softer side during the Mark and Eve romance saga, this issue will make your sensitive eyes well with tears and your moobs lactate. For those that believe the mushy stuff is solely for ladyheads and overly sensitive old men (sigh) then you will cheer the fact Atom Eve is no more and regale in the sheer brutality with which Kirkman and Ottman draw out her demise. Either way, you will be affected.

Despite finding myself in the camp of being sad to see Atom Eve pounded into molecules, I still find myself sadistically rooting for her executioner. Not because I like the sadistic bastard, but simply because he is so evil and such an amazing foil that I don’t want him to go away. I believe this is the formula Kirkman used when he created this guy -- Take the Joker’s sadism -- Stuff it inside the body of Superman – Leave the brain of Abbey Normal, and put in Lex Luthor’s cerebral sponge. Honestly, Kirkman can’t let Mark keep good on his promise of ending this guy’s life, he might be impossible to top.

Some of Ottley’s panels remain burned in my brain, anchored like the Pythagorean Theorem. The first two are panels surrounding the death, excuse me, extermination of Eve. At one point as she’s dying, Ottley zooms in on the lips of the evil Viltrumite, caked in blood as he oozes utterly condescending and mildly pervy statements that simply cheapen the end of Eve’s life. More fun came when the bad bad Viltrumites explained the physiology of being torn in half as he stretched Bugvincible like the kid was in Mike TV triage.

Even though I’m giving away the whole damn story, I have to add one more paragraph of spoiler goodness and pose a question to fellow fans of the book. There’s a part with a two pages spread of the salty Viltrumite’s face basking in the fact that his leash is off for the conquest of earth and collateral damage is encouraged. I find it mildly intriguing that this statement alludes to the fact that the Viltrumites take their business of conquest quite seriously by taking measures to leverage as much of a planet’s infrastructure as possible. Anyone else ready for a day in the life on the Viltrumite empire? I kind of am.

This book could truly start to adorn the “Probably Best Damn Comic Book in the Universe” across their cover again, but this time lose the “probably”.

When Optimous Douche isn’t reading comics and misspelling the names of 80’s icons, he “transforms” into a corporate communications guru. "What if the whole world had superpowers? Find out in the pages of Optimous’ original book AVERAGE JOE. Read the first full issue on Optimous’ New Blog and see original sketches by fellow @$$hole Bottleimp. If you are a publisher or can help these guys get AVERAGE JOE up, up, and on the shelves in any way, drop Optimous a line."

CAPTAIN AMERICA #600

Writer: Ed Brubaker and Friends
Artist: Butch Guice & Enough Others to Field a Softball Team With
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: Humphrey Lee

Never before, at least that I can recall right now, have I ever really seen such a "Big Hype" book that has presented itself so nonchalantly. I don't know if it's because the large events that give this book its buzz from time to time just happen every couple of years now that it's free to kind of do its thing with the story direction writer Ed Brubaker wants without falling prey to whatever push the Marvel home offices decide to make of it, or if Mr. Brubaker is just the kind of professional that just wants to write the damn story he wants to write. Methinks it's a little of both, but either way here we find ourselves again, three years(ish) from the Death of the Star Spangled Avenger (which apparently translates into one year Marvel Universe time) and CAPTAIN AMERICA is making headlines again, this time in the form of a whopping 100+ page monster of a comic so important that you could have bought it a whole two days(!!!) earlier last week if your LCS so chose to spring for extra shipping to get an early bundle of hype. And they would have been fools to do so... *cue an "Oh Snap" from the cheap seats*

Now, that's not meant as a knock on the comic itself. CAPTAIN AMERICA #600 as a comic, especially as one that is supposed to be the next big direction changer in a run that for fifty-plus issues now has done its best to just tell the story it wants to tell, is another solid installment in the saga of the series. Like I just said, the Marvel offices want to make this another big feather in their cap (didn't mean for the pun, I swear) but I'm sure Mr. Brubaker just wants to go about the saga of the life and legacy of the man in the Red, White, and Blue that he's been writing for six years now. Yes, there's "hype" behind this because it's the anniversary of Cap's Death and the lead up to his always inevitable return...in the pages of REBORN. All I know is that there seems to be a lot of changes and plot threads coming to a head here soon, one of which may or may be the return of Steve Rogers, and this issue brings a lot of them to the forefront for, well, wherever they may come to fruition, either here in the main book or in REBORN.

Okay, enough babbling about the machine, let's get on to the heart of the matter. So first, yes, Sharon Carter has a memory go unlocked inside her head that could lead to the discovery of exactly what happened to Steve Rogers. Obviously that's the big matter at hand and it was decently executed. I mean, we all had to have known something was going to come from this revelation from her end because of how shrouded in mystery it's been since it happen so many moons ago. And the mystery is still hiding behind that accursed veil because, well, we've got a mini-series to build up to. But there was a good bit more than just that, of course, like a visit with the 50's Cap who's still out there and feeling like an outsider in the world and the new Bucky, who really kind of crept up on me suddenly. Now, I know we've seen some preview images of her in the pages of Marvel books the past couple months, but I didn't really expect to see her just show up so abruptly in the pages of this book. I don't know where she's been hiding all this time, or if she's even been in anything since those glorious days of "Heroes Reborn", but instead of the integration I thought I'd see, with her maybe saving Bucky-Cap's bacon or something, instead she's following around Patriot. I guess it works, because eventually we get to who she is in an abbreviated origin story three pages in, but it really came out of the blue in a way, even though I assumed she'd finally make some face time in this issue. There's just so many pages to fill, y'know?

So, take all that, and add in a bunch of tribute stories to the fallen Steve Rogers, both in the main story itself as Bucky and the New Avengers show up to a memorial for Steve on the down-low, and in the form of some side stories by Roger Stern and Mark Waid, and you have yourself a rather sizable Anniversary issue. Each of them had their own take on the death of Steve Rogers, and all of them executed pretty well. The memorial in the feature itself was more mired in the current state of the Marvel U, as the Avengers had to mourn him in secret due to Norman Osborn and his band of bastards, while Stern took a much more continuity based approach by having his be from the perspective of characters that were involved in the life of Steve and no doubt from his jaunt on the book back in the day (since I had no clue who they were at all) and Mr. Waid's is more that of a view of Rogers to the common man, and the lives he touched during his time in the uniform. All had their moment of poignancy, all did well to pay tribute in this special issue.

Basically, to wrap this up, despite all the hullabaloo and pomp, and the big shebang over this being such a "monumental" over-sized Anniversary issue, this more or less in the end ended up being just more of the same in the progression of the Brubaker Saga of Captain America, this time with some side tales and lots of guest artists. If anything, to be perfectly honest, because there was just so much thrown in the blender to show how much is going to happen in this book over the next, I dunno, couple years I'd assume, it almost seemed a little distracting with so many shifts in the flow of the book. But, overall, it was successful in being a good prelude of things to come, even if it didn't exactly make me ravenous like all the press would have me believe I should be after reading it. I'm just glad, that after so much time on a run, and even with the occasional diversionary arcs here and there, that there's still a great bit of focus on where this book is obviously meant to go and a method to the madness as everything is starting to come full circle. It's really just a testament to the focus of the staff that's been involved with this book to just try and make it a run for the ages and not get it too mired in being something it's really not.

If this is indeed the return of the legend, hopefully it lives up to the expectations that have been thrown upon it, and I'm sure it will, though a part of me would like to see the Buckster behind the shield for a bit longer. But we all knew it wouldn't last forever, and its been fun so far, but there's no reason to get ahead of ourselves when we should just be sitting back and letting the master work his magic, shouldn't we? That's what I thought too. Here's to the American Dream and the idea that a mainstream comic can be just as important and relevant as anything without having to be constantly dragged into overblown events and ground out through the hype machine over and over again. That's my Dream is when we can get more runs like this without any of the baggage and just based on the quality and consistency of the story being told. Yes, I have a dream...

Humphrey Lee has been an avid comic book reader going on fifteen years now and a contributor to Ain't It Cool comics for quite a few as well. In fact, reading comics is about all he does in his free time and where all the money from his day job wages goes to - funding his comic book habit so he can talk about them to you, our loyal readers (lucky you). He's a bit of a social networking whore, so you can find him all over the Interwebs on sites like Twitter, The MySpaces, Facebookand a Blogger Account where he also mostly talks about comics with his free time because he hasn't the slightest semblance of a life. Sad but true, and he gladly encourages you to add, read, and comment as you will.

TURTLE VS BUNNY TPB

Writer and Artist: Joe Dunn
Publisher: Digital Pimp Online
Reviewer: Liam ‘The Kid’

Note: ‘The Kid’ is 8 years old and has been doing reviews on his own site since August of 2008. And you can now follow the kid’s daily ‘adventures’ on Twitter.

I picked up this comic at the Philadelphia Comic Convention over the weekend. It was a pretty good show even though it was a lot smaller than the one in New York. I liked having a chance to see Dan Slott from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and Franco from TINY TITANS and they both said they like the reviews. I always like when the comic book creators tell me they read the reviews.

The guy who made TURTLE VS BUNNY is pretty funny. He was really nice at the convention and saw me and my brother laughing at the pages and was telling us all about the book. There’s one page where the turtle is getting a shotgun ready that is really hilarious. It’s funny because of the way the turtle is drawn with the shadows on him so he looks real angry and the ‘click clack’ of the gun getting ready. We were laughing at that page for a long time because it’s just so silly.

Everyone knows the story about the turtle and the rabbit racing but the guy who did this comic makes it so that the turtle and rabbit are having a war against each other during the whole race. The whole comic is about different ways that the turtle and bunny try to keep each other from winning. The turtle throws an ax and a bunch of knives at the bunny and the bunny pulls out a pistol and shoots at the turtle. The whole race is the two of them just coming up with different weapons and traps to use against each other. They even have different family members that come to their rescue and help them fight each other. The turtle and bunny use a lot of different weapons and get in all kinds of trouble but there isn’t any blood or anything like that. It’s just like a cartoon.

Most of the book is about the race and all of the tricks they play on each other. There is a lot of really funny stuff. There is also a different ending after the story is over so you can read both endings. I like the ending where the turtle wins the best because I think it’s funnier but I think it’s cool that the guy put both types of endings in the book. There are also little games and puppets that you can make out of the characters I’m not going to cut up the comic or anything but I like the idea that they used with the puppets.

The guy who made this comic is really cool and I think he made a really funny story. There is a lot of hilarious stuff that goes on in the comic with all of the characters and me and my brother were laughing for most of the comic. I don’t know if he is going to do any more stories like this but I hope he does. Everyone should read this comic because it’s really awesome. If you want to read the comic on the computer you can go here.

My Rating: 10 out of 10.

THE MAN WITH NO NAME #11: HOLIDAY IN THE SUN

Writers: Luke Lieberman & Matt Wolpert
Art: Diego Bernard
Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment
Reviewer: Mr. Pasty

THE MAN WITH NO NAME is back with its eleventh issue titled “Holiday in the Sun.” After reading this book cover-to-cover, I’m assuming that holiday is April Fools Day since I feel like the joke’s on me. This series is based on the life and times of characters created and popularized in the “Spaghetti Westerns” from cinema’s yesteryear. Particular attention is given to Blondie and Tuco from Sergio Leone’s “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.” In fact that pretty much sums up the merits of this book – assuming you drop the good and the ugly.

This book is bad. And I don’t mean bad like a bunch of leather-clad pop stars screaming incoherently in a New York City subway station, I mean X-PAC bad, where every ounce of creative output falls apart like some sort of animated cream of wheat. There’s even a train wreck early in the story that I found to be an unintentionally funny example of foreshadowing.

Blondie and Tuco limp their way through a half-baked plot that revolves around three men in a race against time (and each other) to obtain a bounty of gold. Sound familiar? It should, since it’s basically ripped directly from the movies with a few minor details changed for the comic. Unfortunately those minor details happen to be good storytelling, suspense and plausibility.

The characters are an overwhelming failure. Blondie, first embodied by Clint Eastwood as a charming enigma oddly misplaced among a world of vagrants, is neither mysterious nor enigmatic. In this book his purpose is little more than window dressing, as he’s rigidly propped up in each panel like a department store mannequin.

Tuco, on the other hand, both menacing and maniacal on film, comes across here as a punch-drunk Mr. Belvidere, waddling from one mishap to the next with a puss on his face like Shemp when he needed cheese. I thought the purpose of creative license was to do something creative with the existing material. Lieberman and Wolpert seem content to simply regurgitate Leone’s dialogue with such a flat and robotic delivery that at times I wondered if their script would have been better served as a reimagining of Crichton’s “Westworld.”

Retreads can be done successfully if they respect the source material like Dark Horse’s ALIENS. This is no ALIENS. In fact I don’t know what this is or what it’s supposed to be. The way they rape and pillage Leone’s body of work makes this more than just grave robbing: it’s flat-out necrophilia. Avoid this book at all costs. If you did happened to buy it, do what I did and mail it to someone you hate.

My rating: 0 Bill Carsons out of 5.

EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT IRIS #1

Writer: David Wohl & Brad Foxhoven
Art: Eduardo Francisco
Publisher: Aspen Comics
Reviewer: Matt Adler

In the wake of the untimely passing of Aspen founder Michael Turner a year ago now, I was particularly curious to check out this new offering and see what the company can do without the man who was Aspen’s entire reason for being. EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT IRIS purports to be inspired by real-life stories of femme fatales from the Far East who were trained to be a combination of bodyguard, escort, and secretary to wealthy and powerful businessmen. It’s hard to know how much truth there is to these stories, but in any event, it’s an interesting premise for a series.

Iris here is a bit of a cipher. We’ve been told in interviews that she comes to regret her line of work as a hired killer for an amoral businessman, but that’s not in evidence much in this first issue. By day, she is the prim and proper secretary; by night, she is a lady ninja. She seems to go about her assignments and even daily life a bit robotically, dispatching foes with ease and always maintaining her poker face.

Consequently, artist Eduardo Francisco isn’t given a great deal to work with in terms of Iris’ emotional range, but still, his art has a lot going for it. The faces that populate the pages are interesting and diverse, and his action layouts are dynamic; a scene with Iris infiltrating a home and poisoning a rival businessman is particularly well done. There are a few shortcomings, though; his depictions of the Afghan baddies at the beginning of the story come across a bit like stereotypical caricatures, and on certain pages it’s not clear if he correctly interpreted the writer’s direction.

The issue comes off as somewhat reminiscent of the TV series DOLLHOUSE, starring Eliza Dushku. DOLLHOUSE has suffered from low ratings, which some have attributed to a central flaw in the premise: since the main character is essentially a blank slate upon which her programming is written by her masters, she has no real personality for viewers to connect with. Likewise, since Iris has been molded to serve her master, she doesn’t come across as a sympathetic character, or even one we can relate to. She has no apparent conflicts, no weaknesses, no flaws. She simply does as she’s told, quickly and efficiently.

It will be a difficult writing challenge to move her from this robotic state to one where we can plausibly believe that the same character is beginning to develop a conscience and have regrets, after all this time spent ruthlessly murdering people. There ought to be some catalyst which provokes this change; it’ll be up to writers to give us something along those lines we can buy into.

WAR OF KINGS: ASCENSION #3

Writers: Andy Lanning and Dan Abnett
Artist: Wellington Alves
Inker: Nelson Pereira
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: Rock-Me Amodeo

I think most of us have come to realize that the space-based stuff Marvel puts out is top notch, and WAR OF KINGS has been no exception. Sure, some of the various covers have been iconic almost to the point of silliness (Starlord duking it out, fist-to-fist, with Black Bolt? That’s like Bambi vs. Godzilla) but they’ve been eye-catching and entertaining. More importantly, the stories inside have been served up uber-cool with a side of butt-kicking. The main book, plus GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, plus NOVA, carry the meat of the story, but ASCENSION, like a few other mini’s and one-shots, carry a nifty backstory.

If you haven’t been following this, former C-lister Darkhawk (last seen in NOVA and the fairly excellent LONERS) is told that his suit is driving him crazy. The suit belongs to a cadre of heroes called the Green Lan—I mean, the Nova Cor--, wait, it’s on the tip of my tongue…anyway, the guy telling him all this is lying, they’re really a brotherhood of bad guys, and Darkhawk gets evicted from his own body. And that’s where we pick up.

The artwork is solid. I miss Alves on Nova, but I’ll take him here. He doesn’t do spooky as well as he does bombastic (as in Blaastar) but it’s good stuff throughout.

As far as Darkhawk’s development, other than the whole “you’re a part of a fraternity much, much greater” thing, I do like the fact that Darkhawk is getting a power upgrade. Yes, it’s a standard way to re-invent and update a character, but like a nice bikini on a summer day at the beach, it gets my attention every time. I also like the fact that there are no guarantees with this hero. Quick, how many of you can tell me Darkhawk’s civilian identity? I’m guessing not many. Will he make it out alive? There’s really no telling.

As far as twists and turns go, I think I actually knew where this was heading, and I was still surprised at the cliff-hanger. The book weaves right into WoK, but it’s really telling its own story. And it’s a good story, more than strong enough to warrant the mini. The real question will be, is Chris Powell, aka Darkhawk, an interesting enough character to warrant his own ongoing series? I’m sold on the mini, for sure, but I think the answer, so far, is no. However, in the hands of the right writer(s), I could be wrong.

TANK GIRL ONE (Remastered)
TANK GIRL TWO (Remastered)

Written by: Alan C. Martin
Illustrated by: Jaime Hewlett
Published by Titan Books
Reviewed by: superhero

Anyone who took the time to read my review of CREAM OF TANK GIRL a couple of months ago already knows how much I loved that comic book once upon a time. TANK GIRL was comic book chaos unleashed. Each page of TANK GIRL was brimming with enough imagination and chaos to fill Galactus’s shiny purple helmet several times over. Yes, I’ve already said in my review of CREAM OF TANK GIRL a couple of months ago that TANK GIRL was the absolute shit to me in my late teens and early twenties. I loved that book up and down and all over. I loved it so much that when I was at the San Diego Comic-Con last year and I ran into the Titans Books booth I picked up every TANK GIRL trade they had. Of course it helped a bit that every book was priced at half off but still, let’s not split hairs, shall we? TANK GIRL was comic fun to me back in the day and I was just dying to see if it still held up for me almost twenty years later. I’m more than glad to say that it did.

So then you must be asking yourself why I would bother with these two newly re-printed editions of almost the same exact TANK GIRL material that I already had??? Why, oh, why would I bother looking into a new edition of material that was already sitting on my bookshelf??? Not only that, but newly re-printed material I already had in color that was in being re-printed in black and white???

Why? Well, I’ll tell you why…because this is TANK GIRL unfiltered, dumbass.

See the “original” material that Dark Horse released in the ‘90’s was stuff that Dark Horse colored for publication in the U.S. Apparently most of the original TANK GIRL stuff was printed in black and white! It’s shocking, I know! And while I’ll admit that the nineteen year old me may have balked at reading a black and white comic book the thirty-six year old me relishes at the chance to see Jaime Hewlett’s art untouched by the limited palette of early ‘90’s coloring limitations. Here in these newly minted Tank Girl editions stands Hewlett’s art as it was originally presented. Raw, powerful, and totally screwed up bonkers. It’s beautiful black and white cartooning at its best and it’s one of the biggest reasons I fell in love with this book. To see it in pure black and white is a thrill because if there’s one thing I’ve realized in all my comic book reading days it’s that sometimes the colorists got in the way of actually being able to see what comic book pencillers and inkers were up to on the page. As a lover of Hewlett’s work this book is just as much a treat to me as CREAM OF TANK GIRL was. Yes, there are some colored pages in TANK GIRL TWO but these appear to be hand painted coloring jobs and when matched against the black and white of the rest of the book it makes both the rare color pages and the numerous black and white pages pop with their own different kinds of magic.

The thing of it is, and I never thought I’d say this, is that the black and white edition of the book actually helps pump up the writing for me as well. I don’t know if it’s something psychological but, to me, it’s almost as if the black and white gives TG a more indie feel to it. It’s weird but without the color Hewlett and Martin’s antics take an even more underground feel to them…if that’s even possible. It really is almost like taking it all in again for the first time with new eyes and I’m so thankful that I got to see the books presented in this way. As a TANK GIRL fan, and a fan of indie comics in general, it just does this old fan good seeing older material brought to life in a way I’d never seen it before.

So thanks Titan Books for giving me more TANK GIRL. I honestly thought that my passion for TANK GIRL had ended with that abhorrent movie. But with CREAM OF TANK GIRL and this you’ve given the ol’ girl a new lease on life. Even if it is with material that is over twenty years old.

And for those of us still bitter about the movie there’s this. Suck it Lori Petty!

Discovered as a babe in an abandoned comic book storage box and bitten by a radioactive comic fan when he was a teenager, superhero is actually not-so mild mannered sometime designer & cartoonist, Kristian Horn of Los Angeles, California. He's been an @$$hole for three years. Some of his work can be seen at www.kristianhorn.com.

DOCTOR WHO: THE FORGOTTEN TPB

Written by: Tony Lee
Art by: Pia Guerra, Kelly Yates, and Stefano Martino
Published by: IDW Publishing
Review by: Baytor

This isn’t Continuity Porn, this is Continuity Bukkake.

Mind you, it’s brilliant and, miracle of miracles, pretty easy to follow without an encyclopedic knowledge of Who lore. You will need to have at least a passing knowledge of the Doctor Who revival, since the book pretty much assumes that any reader reading this will at least be able to name the Companions from the last four years. But if you’ve never experienced Classic Who, then the book does a good job of filling you in as you go.

The Doctor and Martha awaken in a museum which is dedicated to The Doctor and his travels. Using an object related to each of his previous nine incarnations, he relives a past adventure and regains some of his missing memories. All of which is just an excuse to tell a bunch of short stories featuring each incarnation of The Doctor, most of which follow the basic set-up of the time. The first Doctor spends most of his story trying to get out of the mess he landed in, without really attempting to right any wrongs, the second Doctor finds himself on a military base under siege from strange monsters, and so on.

If you’re familiar with the older Doctors and his Companions, then you get the added bonus of being able to hear these characters in your head, but all of the stories are fairly simple and straight-forward. The fifth Doctor’s story stars the Judoon (the rhino guys from Martha’s debut story) and the eighth Doctor’s story ties in with the Time War, but even these two tales are entry-level and don’t require any special knowledge of Who history. My absolute favorite of the bunch is the ninth Doctor tale that takes place during the unofficial Christmas cease-fire during the first World War. If you’ve never heard of the Christmas Truce, do yourself a favor and look it up on Wikipedia; it is both heart-warming and tragic, and it’s a perfect fit for the war weary ninth Doctor.

The final issue is probably the only one that will get puzzled glances from the less hardcore fans. Again, it’s not dependant on having in-depth knowledge, but the background continuity nods in the museum take center stage and new fans will have to let a lot of this stuff wash over them, such as the fake-out identities of the mysterious villain or just who is this Harry Sullivan guy that get name-checked in his one-panel appearance.

There is, however, one vital piece of lore that is vitally important to this story, which is introduced and explained fairly early in the proceedings. For long-time fans, it is a moment long, long over-due and it brought a tear to my eye. I cannot speak for new fans, but it was one of the most powerful moments I experienced in a comic in far too long. It probably won’t hit new fans quite as strongly, but it’s well worth the price of admission for long-time fans.

If you are a long-time or casual Doctor Who fan, I cannot recommend this book enough. It’s wonderful celebration of Doctor Who’s history that doesn’t depend on the reader’s knowledge of it, which makes it perfect for new fans who want a taste of his multi-decade past, and great fun for old fans who remember The Doctor’s address from the old Doctor Who Monthly comic strips and get a thrill out of seeing it in print once more.

WON TON SOUP 2

James Stokoe: Creator
Oni Press: Publisher
Vroom Socko: Off his tits

When I reviewed the first volume of WONTON SOUP, I made it a point to bring up just how phenomenally insane the book was. I believe I used the phrase “verging on Dadaism.” There is no verging with this installment. This book is bugfuck. Pure bugfuck. There’s a section where our protagonists, space truckers Johnny Boyo and Deacon Vans, are stoned to the gills on the freebased memories of an ancient alien race. The art moves from trippy, to massivly trippy, to damn insane, to a sketch of creator James Stokoe passed out on a couch complaining that his head is full of shapes. The next two pages are blank, preceded by instructions on how to fill them in yourself.

Yeah…

Don’t get me wrong, there’s an actual plot in there too. Much of the focus of the book’s first half is on Deacon’s backstory. Before becoming a trucker, he worked his uncle’s sex farm, growing dildos. Then his uncle dies, and Deac discovers what his relative had hidden in the old silo out back. To even attempt to talk about what happens next would both serve to water down the reading experience and drive me absolutely insane.

The second half has our two heroes stranded on an alien world without gas. While searching for a fuel source, they run into a colony of clones, deal with some cannibals, and Johnny cooks up some pookapples. The pookapples…sweet merciful fuck, the pookapples. Those I can’t explain, not out of concern for spoiling the book, but because I’ve read that section five times and I still don’t know for sure what the hell is going on. I love it, but it’s batshit insane. Check that, it makes the batshit insane look like “Sesame Street”. It makes “The Mighty Boosh” look like “I Love Lucy”. Think of the craziest, silliest, most off the top thing you can, then make it crazier. It still won’t touch what’s in this book. I love every page.

The first volume of WONTON SOUP pushed the envelope on pure madness in the most entertaining way possible. This one shreds the envelope, and then blows up the mailbox with a cherry bomb. I can’t wait for the next volume, which I expect will implode the post office. There’s a running gag in here about Stokoe’s artwork causing him to be deported. The book is so out there that it’s just this side of plausi-

What’s that?

I’m being told that Stokoe actually was deported last year. So…

Buy this book. It’s the good kind of fucked up.

Vroom Socko, aka Aaron Button, has two passions in his life. One is storytelling, with a massive emphasis on comics. The other is the Portland Timbers. Where were you the night of the Teddy Bear Massacre, huh? Vroom knows where he was.

MR. STUFFINS #2

Writers: Andrew Cosby and Johanna Stokes
Artist: Axel Machain
Publisher: Boom Studios
Reviewers: Liam ‘The Kid’ and Ethan

Note: ‘The Kid’ is 8 years old and has been doing reviews on his own site since August of 2008. And you can now follow the kid’s daily ‘adventures’ on Twitter. Ethan is Liam’s 6 year old brother.

Liam: Ethan had a lot of fun doing reviews with me. When we went to the Philadelphia Comic Convention, Franco from the TINY TITANS comic said that he heard all about our reviews and said he was so happy that we liked his book. He even made a Robin sketch for Ethan and said that he would color it in or let my brother color it. So Ethan wanted to color it.

Ethan: I like that the guy knew who we were and liked our reviews. He drew a really good Robin picture.

Liam: You did a good job coloring it, too.

Ethan: I think it will be cool if next year at the New York Comic Con when you draw your pictures again if I am the guy that colors them in.

Liam: The New York show was a lot of fun. I liked getting to sit at the booths and do drawings for people.

Ethan: And next time I’m going to help you.

Liam: It’ll be fun. MR. STUFFINS is another really funny comic book that I never heard about. I got it at the comic store, not at the comic convention. It’s from the company that does THE MUPPET SHOW comic and THE TOY STORY Comic and books like that.

Ethan: I like that they do comics about those movies.

Liam: The story is about a teddy bear that has a secret micro chip in him that makes him super tough and super smart. Some bad scientists want to use the chip to make this robot they built super strong, kind of like an evil ATOMIC ROBO. In the beginning of this comic the little boy is sleeping in his bed and Mr. Stuffins wakes him up because the bad guys are surrounding the house. Then they show the bear standing on the bed and he has two pistols.

The bad guys break into the house and attack the boy’s family. Mr. Stuffins tries to help the boy escape through the attic but there are people on the roof so he takes the boy downstairs instead.

Ethan: I liked when Mr. Stuffins goes downstairs and beats up all the guys who have guns and he starts a fire to get away. It looked funny when all the bad guy’s helmets were getting smashed.

Liam: Mr. Stuffins was going crazy on the bad guys. He was kicking them and punching them and doing all sorts of moves and he’s yelling at the boy to keep running and stop crying.

Ethan: I liked when the bad guys cut the bear’s arm and his stuffing started to fall out.

Liam: That was a pretty cool idea. One of the funniest parts in the book was when Mr. Stuffins took the boy to a secret hideout to get away from the bad guys and he started to think he was dying because his battery was running out.

Ethan: That was the best part. I liked when Mr. Stuffin’s nose turned red because it was his warning light. He looked funny.

Liam: And he started talking slower and slower until his battery wore off. I liked how it ended too and how the bad guys have that giant robot that they’re trying to turn into a weapon using the chip in Mr. Stuffins. I think it’ll be a cool battle if Mr. Stuffins battles that robot in the next issue.

Ethan: The artist draws the teddy bear cute and scary looking at the same time.

Liam: It’s funny to see the bear doing all sorts of karate moves and battling humans. This was a really cool idea for a comic book and I hope they keep making more of them. This was a good week for comics because there were two books that I think were perfect.

Our Rating: 10 out of 10.

Every comic shop has them…battered long boxes jam-packed with dog-eared titles ranging from forgotten heroes of the 1970s to multiple copies of chromium-covered “collector’s item” comics from the Big Bust of the 1990s. But if you are patient, and dig deep enough, you just may find something special…

A few weeks ago a discussion took place in our column’s talkback section regarding the treatment of minorities in comic books. Though the subject at hand specifically focused on Native Americans, the question arose whether any character of ethnicity other than white could be effectively written and drawn by white writers and artists, without stumbling into racial stereotypes or becoming bland, cookie-cutter characters in an effort to avoid such stereotypes. I submit that not only is it possible for a character of color to be well served by white creators; it’s already been done.

GREEN LANTERN: MOSAIC #1-18
Ongoing series (1992-1993)

Writer: Gerard Jones
Artists: Cully Hamner, with Chris Wozniak, Mark Beachum, Mitch Byrd, Luke McDonnell and others
Published by: DC Comics
Scrounged from the bargain boxes by BottleImp for no more than $10.00
BottleImp

My introduction to this series came in the form of one of those comic value packs that you used to find at Toys ‘R’ Us or Costco—you know, a shrink-wrapped bundle of twenty comics (either DC or Marvel) for ten bucks. I was more or less a Marvel Zombie at the time, so getting twenty DC comics was more of a curiosity than a pleasure. There was a lot of chuff in there, as I recall, and I doubt that many of those comics remain in my collection today. But one issue stood out above the rest: GREEN LANTERN: MOSAIC (though this particular issue’s banner read I, MOSAIC) #11. I had been aware that there was a black Green Lantern; I remembered seeing reprints of some of Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’ groundbreaking work on the title from the 1970s which included the then-Angry Young Black Man John Stewart, but having never seen the character again in the few DC comics I owned, he was pretty much forgotten. But with this single issue, the character of John Stewart jumped out and buried itself in my brain.

No fight scenes, no giant ring-constructed plungers or boxing gloves—just Stewart waking up in his childhood home, reliving his youth and talking to his family, and the impact that his race and his upbringing had upon him. This was not Hal Jordan fighting Sinestro. This was something that I had never seen before.

Flash-forward to years later, me flipping through some moldy long-boxes at the local flea market, and coming across a stack of MOSAIC. Once I read more of this short-lived series, I knew that I had to find the complete set.

Here’s the premise of the series: one of the Guardians of the Universe known as the Old-Timer went insane and decided to bring pieces of all the alien worlds he’s visited to keep him company on the Green Lanterns’ home base on planet Oa. These various towns, cities and settlements were fit together into a Mosaic-land. After big fight scenes between the Old-Timer and the remaining Green Lanterns (Jordan, Stewart and Guy Gardner), the Old-Timer was killed and Stewart was put in charge of the Mosaic, which the other Guardians had decided was to serve as a cosmic experiment in universal harmony. That all happened in the regular GREEN LANTERN title. The MOSAIC title used this springboard as a way to delve into the psyche of John Stewart and not only analyze what made him a complex, fractured individual, but to look at the issues of race relations, cultural identities, and the entire concept of the “alien” in its broadest definition.

Gerard Jones and Cully Hamner didn’t shy away from the issue of Stewart’s race; rather, his color became one of the key elements in the series. Jones chose not to write him the same as he would write a white character, but neither did he make Stewart a “token” black man. John Stewart was himself a mosaic of various culture and identities; his personality was multifaceted to the point of near-madness. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in issue #5 (“The Child-Man and the Great White Hero”), when Hal Jordan uses his ring to invade Stewart’s mind, but finds an array of different aspects of John waiting to fight him off. Jones flirts with stereotyping here and elsewhere—Stewart’s doppelgangers include a pimp and a homeless man and issue #12 includes Stewart fantasizing about a black superhero team dubbed “The Minister X Men”—but in each instance the stereotypes are evaluated and compared to the reality of the way the world works (even if the reality is that of a comic-book world).

Cully Hamner, whose recent work includes the latest (and late) BLUE BEETLE series and BLACK LIGHTNING: YEAR ONE, gave MOSAIC a unique look that was part Mike Mignola as filtered through the ‘90s tendency to over-hatch (though Hamner’s hatching at least had a design about it, unlike the dreaded Liefeld), but his single most important contribution to the series was this: Cully Hamner drew John Stewart as a black man. With kinky hair, a broad nose and big lips. It’s amusing to read the letters column of the series and see that some readers loved the depiction, while others (both white and black) were uncomfortable with Hamner’s design. Gerard Jones responds in the column of issue #8: “[Hamner] was working in an art studio, sketching a black person with the sort of tentatively fullish lips that a sensitive young white artist might be expected to draw, when his African-American employer looked over his shoulder and asked something to the effect of, ‘What’s wrong, Hamner? Are you afraid to draw black people with big lips?’ With that in mind, Cully was determined from the start of this project to draw a John who, as he put it, ‘Doesn’t look like a white man colored brown.’” To my mind he succeeded admirably—his John Stewart looks like a real black man, therefore the questions of race and culture raised within MOSAIC feel more relevant.

MOSAIC ended up suffering from low sales and the series ended with issue #18, wherein John Stewart was elevated to near-godhood as he became a human equivalent of the Guardians (luckily Gerard Jones was given leeway to bring his series to its intended resolution, albeit in a very compressed form). Stewart ended up vanishing from the Green Lantern radar for years, popping up here and there in small supporting parts (such as the very short-lived, very ‘90s DARKSTARS) with all events of MOSAIC forgotten and consigned to the dustbin. Thanks to his inclusion in the JUSTICE LEAGUE animated series, Stewart is once again a prominent player in the Green Lantern mythos… but he has lost that spark of madness that made his character so unique and multi-dimensional.

Why did MOSAIC do so poorly with comic readers? As I said before, there weren’t a lot of fight scenes or big action moments; most of the action took place inside Stewart’s psyche. I’m sure that many readers of the regular GREEN LANTERN (or god help them, GUY GARDNER) series came to MOSAIC with certain expectations, and were baffled by what the series actually encompassed. MOSAIC would have done better with readers of Morrison’s ANIMAL MAN, or even the pre-Vertigo “recommended for mature readers” SANDMAN and SWAMP THING. Perhaps if this series had been published in today’s more diverse market, MOSAIC would have found a larger, more loyal audience. But hey, early ‘90s comic readers’ loss is our gain, because chances are you’ll be able to find this series in the cheapie boxes at your local comic shop. If you like superheroes but also like to broaden your horizons beyond the four-color spandex slugfests, this title might be just what you’re looking for.

THE QUEST FOR THE MISSING GIRL

By Jiro Taniguchi
Released by Fanfare/Ponent Mon
Reviewed by Scott Green

There's a direct, explicit quality to naming manga THE QUEST FOR THE MISSING GIRL. It's an unadorned description. Not marketing, not metaphorical and not intriguing in and of itself. It's a fitting title for what could be thought of as a purged version of a genre thriller. Think DIE HARD with a lead that is even more human and physically breakable. The result of marrying the story of an unconventional hero with unshakable determination to Jiro Taniguchi’s precise style of line work is manga that refurbishes a familiar plot with a crystalline quality. It's the quintessential story of an accidental investigator tracking down a prodigal child, told with distinctive clarity and maturity.

Because it dictates how the manga registers, Jiro Taniguchi's approach to illustration is worthy of primary attention. The notion of "manga style" art is easily refutable. Even in a given manga anthology, illustration traits are far from monolithic. Taking Shonen Jump in the year 1984 as an example, FIST OF THE NORTH STAR, DRAGON BALL, and KIMAGURE ORANGE, could hardly be called examples of one, unified movement. Even with that disclaimer, Taniguchi's work, which draws inspiration from French artists in addition to manga creators, features a distinctive look.

Especially in Taniguchi's genre work, the precise clarity of his lines serves to comment on the subject. A favorite example of this is HOTEL HARBOR VIEW, written by Natsuo Sekikawa, illustrated by Jiro Taniguchi and released by Viz in 2001. The literally steamy noir, set in Hong Kong and Paris, is entrenched in lies. Exiles and killers deceive each other and themselves. Sekikawa deceives the reader. While all of this human dissembling is occurring, Taniguchi's art frames it in objectivity. Person A shoots person B, and Taniguchi captures the bullets as it cut through the air with photorealistic detail. Sekikawa has obscured the motivations and other human dimensions that lead to that climactic moment but graphically, Taniguchi strips the instant of expressionism or anything other than surgically detailed true. The clash serves as an act of a medium mistrusting its own tenants akin to dissonant avante-guard music.

THE QUEST FOR THE MISSING GIRL features Jiro Taniguchi writing and illustrating, and in this case, he does not over saturate the sights or pack the surroundings in such a way as to project the manga into the realm of the abstract or imagined. There is a director's control of mise-en-scène in how an airy, sunlit patch of flowers on a mountain slope differs from a packed, low-lit night club. None of this is overdone. There’s a reality framed in places that are drawn to life, whether they are a mountain trail, an apartment complex, or the neon lit streets of Shibuya. Regulated into the manga's boxed panels, Taniguchi's imagery borders on understatement.

When Taniguchi does overlay a mountain over a building to reflect how the hero sees what's ahead of him, dramatically emphasizes a scene with speed lines or even page layout departing from rigidly structured boxes to emphasize a single moment, the break from impartiality in a believable, concrete world establishes the significance. In these departures from its standard restraint, THE QUEST FOR THE MISSING GIRL invites emotional outpouring.

THE QUEST FOR THE MISSING GIRL is the story of mountaineer Takeshi Shiga. The quest in question sees Shiga break his decade long self exile in the mountains of Yamanashi Prefecture to search the youth spots of Tokyo for the missing daughter of his former climbing companion. Twelve years ago, Shiga's best friend Tatsuko Sakamoto journeyed on a Himalayan expedition despite Shiga's refusal to accompany him. Sakamoto froze to death, leaving behind a journal. As he lost his ability to write, the dying man expressed regret that he was leaving behind his wife and daughter and implored Shiga to look after his family. In the intervening years, Shiga had some contact with his friend's wife and her daughter Megumi. Megumi visited trails overseen by Shiga and came to view her "uncle" as a protector. Then, Shiga receives a call from her mother, explaining that the regularly reliable Megumi has been missing for several days and asking if she'd absconded to the mountain for a hike. Concerned by the unexplained absence, Shiga takes the train to Tokyo to check in on his friend's wife and daughter.

As tough and intelligent as Shiga is, he's no action hero or even hard boiled investigator. Nor is he an exaggerated stranger in a strange land. He's a man who dives from quiet mountains to noisy streets with little time to acclimate to the radical change in social pressure. The expected reaction to being immersed in an unfamiliar culture in a crowded city, is confusion, if not overwhelming melt down. Shiga tenaciously holds on and slowly advances, like, well...a climber deliberately making their way up a challenging rock face. Presumably, in that metaphorical endeavor, you need some faith that there is in fact a navigable route up the stone wall, and in this case Taniguchi works off the conceit that the problem is not intractable. Shiga does strike some lucky footholds in his advance, in which he is in the right place at the right time to gleam some critical clue. Granted, the character does deserve credit for recognizing and taking advantage of the intel, but the instances of authorially engineered happenstance do serve as a reminder of the manga's genre underpinnings.

THE QUEST FOR THE MISSING GIRL was originally published in 1999, and viewed from the passage of a decade, it does seem to be a story of a particular moment in time. Cell phones do have a role, but so does their non-ubiquity. Characters rush to pay phones. A plot point concerns physically relaying photographs and messages. Like the mechanisms, the culture of the story is linked to a time frame. In recent years, bullying and hikikomori - social shut-in have been among the primary concerns to bleed into manga - though even they aren't particularly up to date. In the case of THE QUEST FOR THE MISSING GIRL it’s paid dating, or teenage prostitution, chiefly undertaken to support consumer habits or as an act of rebellion. Here, it is not unheard of, but not in the forefront of the characters' consciousness either. When an explicit warning sign is spotted, it's not ignored, but it doesn't sound the warning claxons as loudly as it perhaps should have.

When THE QUEST FOR THE MISSING GIRL takes place also has a bearing on how its characters are handled. Though not precisely underwritten, in keeping with the essential nature of the story, the characters are playing roles dedicated to their type...the mother who is too wrapped up in work to notice her daughter, the dangerous friend who is compensating for her own family issues. Though it does not weigh on the conscious of characters like Shiga, the teen alienation connection to paid dating wasn't bleeding edge at the time. The only surprise might be the lack of surprises. This lends purity to the work. As the title, THE QUEST FOR THE MISSING GIRL suggests, there is not an over abundance of human particulars. There is nothing to distract from the landscape of the situation, the place and Shiga's navigation of the problem.

THE QUEST FOR THE MISSING GIRL publisher Fanfare/Ponent specializes in nouvelle manga, a movement that focuses on depictions of the ordinary. Shiga is an exceptional person able to deal with a situation in an extraordinary manner. Yet, what makes THE QUEST FOR THE MISSING GIRL a compelling work is that, even if the reader can't see themselves accomplishing what Shiga accomplishes, an adult can map Shiga's concerns to their own life. Here's a person whose spent years living with the decisions that he's made, and is still trying to reconcile whether he did the right thing for the right reason. Given the book's premise, it's obvious that Shiga is going to have to make some climactic climb up some urban environment. As much as this is a visual spectacle, the impact is a function of how it demonstrates that Shiga shelved his deliberations and single-mindedly carried out the obligations laid out by the path he chose. This resolute follow-through in the face of ambivalence towards past decisions makes THE QUEST FOR THE MISSING GIRL powerful manga. Conveyed with Jiro Taniguchi's tight mastery of his medium, THE QUEST FOR THE MISSING GIRL the manga distinguishes itself with his clenched potency.

Previews of THE QUEST FOR THE MISSING GIRL can be found in Publishers Weekly and at Fanfare/Ponent

Scott Green has been writing for AICN ANIME for over seven years. If you like what you see here and love anime & manga, be sure to check out his latest AICN ANIME column here.

Hey, hi, howdy, how are ya? Ambush Bug here with another set of books that may take some diggin’ to find, but you’re sure to enjoy theses treasures once you do. Step outside of the mainstream and check out the following independent treats.

JESUS HATES ZOMBIES/LINCOLN HATES WEREWOLVES #1 & 2
Alterna Comics

Here’s what I know about Jesus and Lincoln. One died for our sins. One lived in a log cabin. One was a carpenter. One was the writer of the Emancipation Proclamation. What I didn’t know was that JESUS HATES ZOMBIES and LINCOLN HATES WEREWOLVES. Nope. Didn’t know that. But now I do. And I think I’m a better person for it. Stephen Lindsay and Steve Cobb know what Jesus and Lincoln hate and have made a damn entertaining comic book elaborating on just that. I’m not being completely truthful here. For the sake of the opening comedic bit, I said I didn’t know JESUS HATES ZOMBIES, but in fact I do because I read the first volume of this very cool comic. But although that book was cool, there was less of a narrative point to it all at play than there is here with this new story. In the first, we got to know Jesus and how he develops his hatred towards zombies, but little else. Here writer Lindsay is able to take his time and giving Jesus more of a purpose and well roundedness to the character. It’s great to see a writer develop from one volume to the next. The mash-up of historical and supernatural characters here makes for a very fun and gory experience. I love the little details Lindsay brings to the table here. Jesus’ power is based on faith, but since zombies ate most of the world’s people, there’s not much faith to be spread around, so Jesus must take on zombies the old fashioned way…with a baseball bat! But I’m really liking the idea of LINCOLN HATES WEREWOLVES. Seeing one of the most influential presidents braving through the forest armed with a pair of axes and an old timey pistol is just too damn cool for words. Seeing the back-up feature by writer Lindsay and artist John Ruiz in issue 1 just highlights the coolness of the idea. Also included in issue one are tons of pin-ups and a few pages of art from the original artist on the series. Although it isn’t until the gore-filled second issue (illustrated this time by Daniel Thollin, who draws some especially vicious looking zombies) that Jesus and Lincoln cross paths in their pursuit to rid the world of all kinds of beasties, all signs point to their worlds colliding for a gruesome and worthwhile comic book reading experience.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER OGN
First Second Books

Probably one of the most harrowing and poignant reads I’ve read in a long time. This account of one photographer’s experience taking war-time photographs in Afghanistan is hard to look at sometimes, yet more difficult to put down. All I can do is label this as important reading and hope you guys have the good taste enough to take my word for it. This is a truly unique graphic novel experience that pushes the boundaries of what we know as comic books. THE PHOTOGRAPHER shows us actual photographs taken by Didier Lefevre of rich, heartbreaking, and visually fascinating subject matter and fills in the holes of the story with graphic panels provided by artist Emmanuel Guibert. Through the photos and comic book panels, we are traveling alongside Lefevre, following his every move along this gut wrenching and soul straining journey from 1986 up to recent day. In the end, we find out this country has suffered greatly, not only recently, but throughout the years before 9-11. Lefevre takes us in close to see reactions of wounded civilians, horses lying dying on the side of the road, and other snapshots that offer an unflinching look at a culture that has been at war for ages. You can’t help but feel something when leafing through these vivid black and white photographs. First Second has always been a mark of quality when it comes to comics. But THE PHOTOGRAPHER is in a world of its own. It’s important, ground-breaking, and resonant, offering a jarring perspective on war we don’t see on the nightly news or in presidential speeches. Reading through this book, you may try to tell yourself this is only a comic, but the devastating truth is that this is real. Check out THE PHOTOGRAPHER and have your eyes opened to a world that may not be the one you see outside your own window, but it’s real nevertheless.

THE RAILROAD KILLER #1
Jimmy Daze Comics/Death Moon Comics

This horror comic combines urban myths with the serial killer and revenge flick genres in an entertaining and thrilling manner. This is a dark story. Heads are lopped off, the innocent are harmed, and sins are committed. Writer Jaime “Jimmy” Portillo has a good eye for staging a moody scene and punctuating it with a horrific payoff. Writer of the extremely moody and frightening vampire tale GABRIEL (covered right here in Indie Jones last year), Portillo seems to have a firm hold on what can scare a reader. There were a few instances where the captions redundantly described the action in this issue, but those are minor missteps. The dark tone, horrific action, and damn fine art from Arturo Delgado Molina make THE RAILROAD KILLER one horror comic to look out for. Check out the Myspace trailer for the comic here.

Ambush Bug is Mark L. Miller, reviewer and co-editor of AICN Comics for over eight years. Check out his short comic book fiction here and here published in MUSCLES & FIGHTS 3 and MUSCLES & FRIGHTS on his ComicSpace page. Bug was interviewed here and here at Cream City Comics. Look for more comics from Bug in 2009 from Bluewater Productions, including the just-announced sequel to THE TINGLER for their VINCENT PRICE PRESENTS series available in July’s previews and on the shelves September 30th.

DESTROYER #3
Marvel MAX

If Marvel lets Kirkman kill off Destroyer at the end of this miniseries they’ve got a boxful of screws loose. Kirkman’s one man killing machine does so in fun and imaginative ways, made even more fun by the amazing art by Cory Walker who tosses out action-y packed panels with the glee of two kids bashing Matchbox cars together in a sandbox. Sure, to call the intense violence in this book fun sounds a bit sadistic, but you can’t help but wear a shit eating grin while flipping through page after page of Destroyer curmudgeoning his way through the Marvel U and leaving piles and piles of villainous bodies in his wake as he inches ever closer to his death. Destroyer is the Danny Glover of the Marvel U, a universe filled with kiddie heroes, but sorely lacking in the elder @$$-kickers department. Hopefully, the Destroyer will be destroying things for a long time after this miniseries is through. I’m having a hell of a time with this book whether he survives this series or not, though. - Bug

THE BRAVE & THE BOLD #24
DC Comics

Another filler issue, stalling until JMS decides to resurface with promised goods for this series. For fill-in issues, though, this one is a brisk and fun adventure. Matt Wayne writes a cool scenario, highlighting the similarities and differences between Black Lightning and Static. Although I would have preferred a bit more depth to the two heroes relationship (especially since throughout JLA & OUTSIDERS, Black Lightning has been hinting at their connection, or even that there was any), the story read as fun and with the slick cover and rare $2.99 price tag, I can’t help but support this issue. The last page addressing the connection between the two heroes seemed a bit tacked on though. All in all, a decent appetizer for what looks to be another JMS homerun hit (according to the cool Red Circle preview in the back of this issue), that, as history has proven, will most likely end with JMS not bothering to even round third and head for home plate. - Bug

PUNISHER #6
Marvel Comics

Rick Remender’s notes in the back of this issue really have me jazzed about the new direction this series is going. The Punisher has landed in the crosshairs of the Hood, who resurrects a bunch of old, dead villains and blackmails them into hunting Frank down if they want to have a new lease on life. Remender’s notes (paired with Tan Eng Huat’s gravelly, yet solid art) shows that he has big plans for this series beyond the Ennis mainstream Frank shenanigans or imagination-lite battles with the Stiltman. Here, Remender has set up a cast of formidable villains that are already dead, so he has a chance to kill a higher class of baddie without slaughtering the few remaining cool villains from other Marvel books. Remender also seems to know his Marvel history by referencing all of these cool villain’s histories AND Scourge’s classic assault on the Bar With No Name. All this and the return of Death Adder? Are you kidding me? Can’t wait for the next issue. - Bug

OUTSIDERS #19
DC Comics

There are a lot of things I like about this book. The art by Fernando Pasarin & Jeremy Haun is solid. The line-up is filled with fun periphery characters. The leadership role given to Alfred is a cool twist. And this issue in particular is filled with tons of hardcore action as the Outsiders battle Deathstroke, a cult of immortals inch ever closer to a confrontation with the team, and a pair of very notorious immortals look to be facing off in the next issue. Still, there are a few things that bother me about this book. First and foremost, a few characters have been given next to no attention at all. Halo, a character I’m not completely familiar with, is given nothing to do at all. And the most vibrant and exciting character in the book, the Creeper, has been stuck on monitor duty since he joined. There is a certain formula in team books that seems to really work. Pete Tomasi is no shabby writer, so I’m thinking he’s going against this formula where the story arc focuses on one teammate, then moves on to another until the entire team gets at least an issue of limelight. Here, we really get none of that. Aside from addressing the beef Geo-Force has with Deathstroke and the team’s hesitance to trust Owlman, the team has been jaunting from one predicament to another, with little attention to team interactions and character growth (two things that attract me to team books like this). What’s fun about these team books is seeing the personalities bounce off one another/work together in varying degrees. Here’s hoping Tomasi has a plan with this crew, because so far, I’m not feeling the team spirit. And for god sakes, give the Creeper something to do!!! - Bug

MIGHTY AVENGERS #26
Marvel Comics

Given the portentous beginnings of this title (BMB and Cho, remember?) I never would have guessed that this book could be so much fun. Who would have guessed that Hank Pym could pimp-slap Reed Richards and get away with it? And that I would root for him? Who could give Hercules so much fun dialogue? Who could have analyzed Jocasta’s relationship with Pym in such a way that even a slightly jaded reader like me would go “Holy crap!” Who? Dan-fricking-Slott, that’s who! Not to mention the little things, like acknowledging the prior relationship between Sue Richards and Stature. (Actually, I kind of expect that from a continuity buff like Slott, but it’s very much appreciated.) But did you see the little “xoxo” under the EPIC FAIL when Valeria pwned Amadeus? See, Slott is someone who knows his characters, and it pours out of him in the neatest ways. This is quickly becoming, for me, the book to watch. - Rock-Me

G.I.JOE: COBRA #4
IDW Publishing

Hands down, the best miniseries of the year. I shit you not, folks. This is the coolest, the rawest, and the best G.I.JOE has been in comic book form. It takes everything you expect from a G.I.JOE comic and flips it the bird and goes off in directions you never thought existed in the Joe universe. This was one hell of an ending, where Chuckles finally decides to make his move on COBRA. After the devastating ending of issue #3, Chuckles is out for blood. And the finale doesn’t disappoint. Part of me wants to relish in this perfect miniseries. The other part of me wants to urge IDW to keep it going. It looks like we’ve got one more one shot from this team of creators this fall. Here’s hoping this amazing mini will garner more stories from Christos Gage & Mike Costa, more pitch perfect art from Anotnio Fuso, and of course, more bad-@$$-edness from Chuckles. Just buy the damn book and thank me later. - Bug

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