Potter’s Field HC: Mark Waid can do anything. Seriously, if Mark Waid wrote the obituaries, I’d post them here as my weekly pick in the newspaper. With Potter’s Field, Waid shows off how he can not only write superheroes and science fiction, but crime comics as well. The series follows the mysterious John Doe, an enigmatic avenger of the silent dead in Potter’s field, a graveyard in New York City where corpses with no identity are buried with numerical headstones. Doe is slowly making his way through the cemetary, number by number, identifying the deceased with the help of his crack investigator skills and network of agents in various areas of law enforcement. Waid not only creates a winning procedural a la Law & Order, but also recaptures the feel of classic pulp comics like the Shadow and Operator #9 from the ’30′s and ’40′s. Doe is a character with no identity, but still manages to be interesting and three-dimensional and the cases, while seemingly simple, still manage a third act plot-twist that keeps the readers interest. The art by Paul Azaceta is also noteworthy. In this day and age of artists who spent pages using photo-reference for intricate details, seeing an artist use the Mignola style of “less is just as good as more” approach is a relief, especially in a crime comic. Azaceta renders scenes with minimal detail and maximum emotion and while that sounds difficult to imagine, just take a look at the book and you’ll see why I’m so impressed. Waid shows once more why he is still a voice in the field that should be an automatic buy at the stands. Potter’s Field is worth every penny.
Codeflesh HC: A few years ago, Image comics scored what they thought was a coup with the hot writer at the time, Scott Lobdell, coming to do indie comics. This “coup” lasted all of ten minutes but it produced a comic called Double Image with Lobdell’s lead story upfront (so amazing and original that it escapes me at this time) and Joe Casey and Charlie Adlard doing a back-up tale. Codeflesh was that back-up tale and I was hooked from the pitch when I first heard it. Bail bondsman Cameron Daltry doubles as his own masked bounty hunter to track down and recapture the super-powered convicts that use his services to post bond. The question espoused by the comic is, “Why does Daltry do this at the expense of his lovelife and his health?” The answer is never really addressed, but that question allows us a way into the main character’s psyche from which we’re intrigued enough to follow the rather simple and episodic plots from short to short. This edition has been digitally colored and arranged in a very elegant reading format to showcase Adlard’s gritty and attractive style and Casey shows of his love for the character in his afterword reminicising about working on the project.
Note: This was a pretty unique buying experience and not necessarily in a good way. Both of these books are collections of extremely good indie crime books. Potter’s Field was published by Boom! Studios and Codeflesh was published by Image (and then reprinted at AIT/PlanetLar and is now back at Image). Both are written by top talent with Mark Waid on Potter’s Field and Joe Casey on Codeflesh. Both books are reprinted in gorgeous formats with Potter’s Field getting a dust jacket, ribbon bookmark, and being packed with bonus scripts and sketches and Codeflesh being recolored from it’s original black and white with an all-new coda to its story. So what’s the problem? I paid over ten dollars more for Codeflesh than I did for Potter’s Field for probably equal the material (112 pages for Potter’s Field vs. 128 pages for Codeflesh). Even my comic shop owner did a heavy sigh and noted the discrepancy in pricing. That discrepancy equals out to almost a dollar extra a page difference. Now, I ordered these books (since I’d read the material and wanted the proper treatment), so I was going to buy them regardless, but this felt slightly off as a consumer. I could have sworn that the Codeflesh was originally solicited as cheaper than this final product and the fact that it took almost 5 more months to come out than the original release date… Regardless. Just a note regarding hardcovers from independent publishers.
Big Book of Barry Ween, Boy Genius: There are a lot of Judd Winick haters out there. Don’t worry, I’m sort of one of them. He’s the definition of hit and miss author with me. His Exiles was pitch-perfect comics while his Green Arrow was preaching and banal. His Batman was twist-filled and fun while his Outsiders was… well… preachy and banal. When Winick just relaxes his inner liberal (and before anyone says anything, I’M a liberal also, so we can smell our own) and just writes comics, he can really pull out all of the stops of great humor and dialogue (his two biggest strengths as a writer). Barry Ween, his first comic book work from Oni Press, showcases those abilities along with his own cartooning talents. The book follows the title character, who is the smartest person on the planet and is also only 10 years old. Barry and his best friend, Jeremy, are constantly getting into trouble while he’s creating devices or working on experiments (usually due to the hyperactive Jeremy getting too curious) and hijinx ensue. Winick manages to take what could be a too-simple concept and actually craft characters that are not only funny but deep and relatable. Without being preachy, anyone who has ever suffered from depression can sympathize with Barry’s plight as he describes the fact that he’s ALWAYS thinking and can’t stop and how horrible it is to be this intelligent while the world is so distant to him. Jeremy offers a simple voice of reason seeing as how he’s, well, simple in comparison to Barry and it’s these somber moments that cement the characters as a winning comedy pair with a great deal of heart. The book contains all of their appearences including a color short from an Oni Color Special from back in the day. It’s well worth the money to grab this book and own the best thing Judd Winick wrote that DIDN’T win a GLAAD award.
Thor vol. 2 HC: As far as I’m concerned, J. Michael Straczynski should be the only person writing Thor right now. I’m talking guest appearances, cameos, and even advertisements, too. Here’s the thing to keep in mind: I hated Straczynski’s Amazing Spider-Man run. I mean, seriously loathed it. Everything he came up with felt forced, uninteresting, and was devoid of anything worth reading for me. When I heard that he had taken up the reigns of Thor, I was slightly intrigued but ultimately wasn’t going to give the book a shot until someone else read it for me and told me what to expect (we like to call this, “lazy criticism”). Suffice it to say, every time I read anything about the book, I felt like I was missing the best book being published by Marvel at the time. When I finally read the first hardcover of the series, I was floored. Straczynski had managed to take a character that I’d never really felt close to in the Marvel Universe and slowly turned him into one of my current favorites. The concept of gods walking among men (as the Asgardians due with their home now floating over Oklahoma, USA) may have been done many times, but Straczynski seems to add a freshness to it that takes these classic Lee/Kirby renditions and turns them on their heads as comedic foils for stories without drifiting into parody territory. Thor himself is presented as being looking to reexamine what exactly it means to lead his fellow gods. Straczynski subtley points out that Thor is not a superhero, but a god of old who protects the weak and vanquishes evil not because of the whole “great power, great responsibility” deal, but because that’s what Odin had always taught him was important. When examining the character this way, you can feel that Straczynski knows what he’s doing and that the coming issues will only get better and better with each release. Oliver Copiel and Marko Djurdjevic both handle art duties here and consistently show off why Thor is not only one of Marvel’s best written comics but also one of its best drawn titles as well. Neither artist disappoints on their issues and if that created lateness, then honestly, I don’t care. It’s worth the wait. This hardcover completes the first year of the title and the arc of Thor and the Asgardians return and Loki’s sinister plot to overthrow Thor’s reign as King. Enjoy and watch as I take back almost everything I ever said negative about J. Michael Straczyniski. Almost.
About three years ago, I brought my sketchbook to the Stumptown Comic Fest in Portland (where I currently dwell). Now, this isn’t my sketchbook that I draw in (frankly, stick figures give me trouble), but rather my collection of convention sketches that I politely and patiently ask artists to add to every year. At this particular festival, I saw artist Steve Lieber (Gotham Central, Whiteout, Civil War: Frontline) and since years prior he’d done a really great Batman sketch for me, I approached him for another. ”What would you like?” he asked. I replied like I usually do, “Anything you’d want to do.” He went right to sketching. Now, I never hover if I can avoid it, so I wandered for a few minutes and came back to discover him putting the finishing touches on a drawing of a woman in cave exploring gear, expertly navigating an underground cave. ”What’s this from?” I asked. ”Something I’m hoping to do soon,” he replied. Years later, I’ve had the pleasure to read the first issue of that book. Underground #1, coming this September published through Image Comics, seems to be the culmination of what strikes me as a very personal comic from Lieber. To have seen the main character of Wesley Fischer evolve from the con sketch done for me and now presented in a full color comic is truly an amazing sight. Along for the ride and handling the writing side of the book is Marvel rising star Jeff Parker (Agents of Atlas, Marvel Adventures Avengers, Exiles) who deftly shows off why he’s such a find. Parker handles dialogue and pacing with a deft hand that shows he writes with an ear for characters that’s sometimes missing in most mainstream books.
