this week’s comics

I don’t think it dawned on me that Bruce Zick was the artist on this Hellboy-universe series. That’s a name I haven’t thought about in quite a while, since he drew Thor for Marvel back in the ’90s. (And that’s on me if I’ve forgotten any work he’s done since then.) Anyway, he does a good job drawing a creepy ethereal realm filled with ruins and monsters in this comic, which is just what I want from a Hellboy-related comic book.

This series has done a very good job duplicating the tone of the TV series, with plenty of humor mixed with what works out to be a genuine Star Trek-style adventure. The earlier issues felt a little more dense, thanks to Ryan North’s inclusion of extra text along the bottom of most pages, and they had the advantage of North’s grasp of working in complex sciences into the plotlines.

But the newer ones are fine, and plenty of fun. The story involves a planet with a missing populace, a Lower Decker feels jealousy over a crewmate’s achievements, and of course plenty of hijinks and goings on. Just by being printed on paper, everything’s less manic, but most everything that made the TV show special is still here in the comic.

Absolute Batman remains The Comic Book That Prints Money, and none more so that this issue, introducing this wild new interpretation of the Joker. Did I order enough for my shop? Probably not. But I expect the forthcoming eight or nine reprints will sell just fine too.

A nice story that shows the moral lessons Superboy has to learn to effectively be a superhero. And it’s not a predicament with which he can punch his way to a solution. I enjoy getting a story like this when too many other superhero comics are involved in High Stakes Super-Fighting Saving the World/Universe/Local Dimension battles. Having a storty where the villain is A Banker Who Sucks is a welcome change.

Writer/usual artist Sophie Campbell (Haining drew this issue) gave a sneak peek of what she had planned for this issue on social media a while back, referencing the Silver Age story where Supergirl parked one of her secret identity Linda Lee robots in a hollowed out tree. The story is about, as Campbell’s cover may imply, What If Supergirl Just Totally Forgot about That Robot?

I won’t spoil anything you can’t already see on the cover, but Supergirl certainly learns a lesson about herself. And that’s what I like about the series…there’s usually some kind of minor (or major!) personal lesson to be had in each issue, whether it’s explicitly laid out there or just something to be inferred. Like the Action this week, it’s good to have a comic that’s more than just “how do I beat up the villain this month?”

I don’t really need to be buying more magazines since I’m way behind on the ones I do have. But, I mean, look at that cover. And I’m always up for a newly-transcribed Len Wein radio from some years back. Added bonus: an article about Jay Scott Pike, the creator of Dolphin.

[SPOILERS ahead, I’m totally not kidding]

So at the conclusion of their run of Animal Man in 1990 – a comic that deal with, among other things, the nature of the various layers to reality — Grant Morrison their own self appeared in the book to speak directly to the title character:

It was certainly a surprise, if not entirely unprecedented, for a fictional character to suddenly find out that he’s a fictional character in a narrative controlled by another, particularly in a serious narrative. Just in comics we saw it in Silverwolf’s Fat Ninja from the mid-1980s…okay, maybe not a 100% serious comic but I still think it counts.

And then later on we’d see it in Cerebus and his interactions with “Dave” (AKA Dave Sim, his creator), and we’d get the Fantastic Four meeting God, or Someone in a similar position, who looks an awful lot like Jack Kirby.

You know, that’s just comics. Don’t get me started on Six Characters in Search of an Author.

Anyhoo, about a year later, in Suicide Squad #58, writers John Ostrander and Kim Yale, along with artists Geoff Isherwood and Robert Campanella, introduced The Writer:

…basically taking Morrison’s self-insert character and giving them the power to affect reality with what they write in the script on their computer. It was an amusing one-shot reuse of Morrison’s storytelling device, who ends up dying on the battlefield because they couldn’t type fast enough to fix things to their benefit, as I recall.

One thing I’ve kinda wondered about all these years was whether or not Morrison was aware that this particular bit of storytelling he used in Animal Man was appropriated for this Suicide Squad tale. I mean, beyond the general awareness that anything you create under a work-for-hire contract for a publisher like DC Comics is going to be owned by DC Comics, and can be freely reused by anyone, editorial permitting. But I’m going to guess Grant Morrison had no expectation of comics’ sensational character find of 1990, Grant Morrison, was ever going to have any kind of life outside of its initial purpose.

But here we are, a mere 35 years later:

…as Morrison brings together various bits and pieces of Marvel and DC lore that they created or (in the case of the Writer’s appearance in Suicide Squad) inspired by them. It’s a wild traipsing through a surreal landscape, and Morrisoin acquits themselves well in applying the Deadpool-style humor necessary to truly make this a fourth-wall breaking, self-referential Deadpool story. It’s that Animal Man twist of discovering he’s a comic book character, but played for laughs and not expense of the story. Obviously, if anyone knows how to do this sort of thing, it’s Morrison.

Can’t really fall into the trap of “is this better or worse than Marvel’s Deadpool/Batman crossover from a few months ago,” as these are two very different approaches. Marvel’s is more straightforward adventure, this one from DC is more…about itself, the layers of reality at play, both succeeding at what they were attempting.

My main issue with these new crosovers is that the lead stories seem a little short, making room as they do for multiple back-ups with other team-ups. In general, I think the additional stories in the Marvel release were maybe a little stronger, but the DC issue has a John Constantine/Dr. Strange back-up (with a Swamp Thing cameo!) that was fun. Again, I’d have liked a longer story to take more advantage of the opportunity, but I’m guessing a 48-page Constantine/Strange comic would have a little more trouble getting greenlit. The other shorts in this issue are fine…the Laura Kinney Wolverine/Nightwing team-up has a surprisingly emotional core to it.

This first batch (if two can be “a batch”) of DC/Marvel crossovers have been successful creatively and financially (at least so far…as I write this the Batman/Deadpool one-shot hasn’t been released to the public yet). I’m hoping the promised Spider-Man/Superman crossovers planned for next year will give us longer lead stories and fewer, if any, back-ups.

Okay, before I get into today’s entry, I want to point back to Monday’s post about the Donald Duck comic from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Because I am an unworldly American who also has eyes that occasionally betray him, I referred to the museum by a different name. I’ve corrected the post (but left my dumb mistake there and crossed out). Thanks to Walter for pointing this out to me.

Now, onto to hopefully less error-ridden looks at some of this week’s comics! SPOILERS AHEAD!

Now, this graphic novel I haven’t had a chance to read page one yet, but it’s Bill Griffith, creator of Zippy the Pinhead and master cartoonist, presenting another of his epic-length biographies, like those of Schlitzie, the famous real life “pinhead” of the 20th century, and Ernie Bushmiller, creator of Nancy.

Griffith is going back to his own family as a subject, having previous written about his mother in 2015’s Invisible Ink. This time he’s examining the life of his great-grandfather William Henry Jackson, the famous photographer. My brief glance through the book reveals another lavishly illustrated, densely-told narrative that promises to be as rewarding as any of Griffith’s works. I can’t wait to dive in.

Sophie Campbell returns to full art chores for this Thanksgiving tale, as Supergirl is delayed for dinner by finding herself attempting to help a previous adversary. …Well, okay, no need to be coy, it’s Princess Shark, she’s right on the cover. It’s a fun read, and it doesn’t shy away from the dichotomy of the holiday being a time for family gatherings and maybe not having the most savory of origins. Supergirl is a solid book built around relationships and learning to understand each other, definitely one of the most worthwhile books on the stands.

Well, bless him for trying.

It’s a little strange that two different American companies are publishing their own Uncle Scrooge McDuck series simultaneously. Both are fine, but this one, the Fantagraphics series, is picking up the “legacy” numbering (the pictured issue is #462).

And this series also feels more like an authentic Disney Uncle Scrooge comic, reprinting as it does from Italian publications, one of the primary sources for modern Duck comics. The Marvel produced Scrooge comics feel more like “what if Scrooge was a Marvel character?” (and I don’t mean Marvel’s series of Disney-themed What If comics.) It’s a perfectly acceptable take, but it’s just off-model enough to be distracting.

The Fantagraphics series is enjoyable, though, and surprised me in #461 with a bit of serious emotional depth in the middle of all the wild goings-on. Old enemy Flintheart Glomgold has reformed (or…did he?) and as he’s about to take the nephews out to his place, Donald has this to say:

That’s not goofball, slapstick Donald being put upon by Scrooge or Gladstone, or furious Donald squawking incoherently…that’s “don’t piss me off, I mean business” Donald, who poses an actual threat to anyone who would harm his family. Good to know some of that steel in Scrooge made it to his nephew.

Look, I’m not a big ol’ Liefeld hater or anything. I appreciate that he has fans and that he can still sell books. Waaay back in 2009, I even put out the question “hey, I know I sold a lot of Youngblood when it first came out, did any of you guys buy it?” and at first I got some responses from folks who were all “yeah, I got caught up in the hype” or “I was totally into Rob then” and that sort of thing.

And then the Rob himself noticed, and linked to me on his message board, and behold, Every Youngblood Fan in America was suddenly in my comments, defending Rob and his comics and occasionally getting mad at me for some reason. You can read the three parts here (1 2 3) but be aware there is some linkrot, including links to the original comments, alas. But I quote enough of them to give you an idea.

And I discussed the comments and responded to them, even the ones that called me a jerk, and I tried to be open-minded about it all. The overall impression I received was that Rob’s fans, at least these responders, were hyperdefensive, and I quickly add, not that I can blame them. Especially at the time, when his work seemed to get pulled out and kicked around a bit, particularly in the comicsweblogosphere.

The ultimate conclusion was that 1) Rob’s work is Not for Me, and 2) More power to his fans for liking his stuff. I mean, that’s all.

Yes, my short review above was a cheap gag, one I got in my head and needed to release. However, like I said somewhere in those posts I linked from 2009, I would love nothing more than Liefeld committing, Erik Larsen on Savage Dragon style, to doing a single issue of Youngblood every single month for the rest of his career, just to see the weird and wild places it would go to. Personally, I think that would be amazing.

This first issue I don’t find particularly amazing…lots of full-page drawings and close-ups and backgrounds that are little more than lightly textured color and the occasional shot of a boat. Everyone’s leaping around and shouting at each other and, I mean, nobody’s buying Youngblood to see a comics version of My Dinner with Andre. This is pretty much the Platonic ideal of a Youngblood comic.

I will give the comic this. The first page, acknowledging the title’s return to Image with panels in the shape of the Image logo, is clever. And the last page reveal does make me want to see what happens next, even though it’ll probably be more leaping around and shouting.

So I don’t know where to even begin with the work of Fletcher Hanks, Golden Age cartoonist. He was only active for a couple of years, from 1939 to 1941, and it would be easy to dismiss his oddball superhero comic book work as naïve art, as Hanks’ stories rarely seem more than unfettered id unleashed upon a page with no mollifying influence between thought and execution

But also keep in mind the superhero genre was still in its infancy, with Superman his own self first appearing in print in 1938. The language and tropes of the superhero comic had yet to establish themselves, leaving Hanks free to interpret the genre in his own unfettered way.

If you’re unfamiliar with the man’s work, a quick Googling will pull up plenty of examples, or you can see an overview of a Stardust story here. And trust me when I say, that’s not even one of the weirder Stardust stories.

A thought that just crossed my mind: Hanks’ comics are like, what if the Herbie the Fat Fury stories were serious? It almost feels that way.

At any rate, Hanks’ work started get a lot of attention a decade or two back, thanks to a couple of nice paperback collections from Fantagraphics. That certainly made new fans of the man’s work. And that brought us to a couple of years back, when a book of new stories about Hanks’ Stardust character showed up on a crowdfunding site. Lots of great creators were involved, lots of perks for the supporters, it all looked great.

Unfortunately, it was a large number of creators, which is, to use the old expression, like herding cats, so the book took a little longer than intended to produce and put out. But supporters were kept in the loop, and worries were kept to a minimum.

At last, this month, they started to ship, and I got mine:

Haven’t had much more than a brief flip-through of the volume, but it’s very nice looking, beautifully colored and printed, and featuring some real top flight talent.

Unfortunately there is a page of A.I. art in the book, apparently being used by the “artist” on purpose to make a point about something, but I’ll never read it and neither will you. Doing A.I. “comics” is an insult to other actually talented creators involved in this book and should never have been allowed.

The other little thing that bugged me about this had nothing really to do with the book itself, but rather how one of the funding campaign perks was handled.

This is what I ordered for the shop:

That would get me three copies of the hardcover, and as it says right there in black and white, “all copies signed by Mike Allred.” Great, all the books will be autographed, I’m getting everything at a reasonable price, should sell great at the shop.

As it turns out, the books weren’t signed, and I instead got these separate bookplates with Allred’s signature:

…which, you know, “signed bookplate” is fine, too, probably easier for the publisher to get those shipped from place to place instead of mailing hundreds of books to Allred, or flying Allred out to where the books are and have him sign them there. But “bookplate” is different from “book signed” and that distinction should have been made more clear.

On top of everything else, said bookplates are wider and a hair taller than the actual book, so if you’re gonna but them in there, you may have to trim them down. And they’re not self-adhesive so you’ll have to glue ’em down yourself.

Sigh. I did drop a line to the publisher suggesting that he be more careful about this sort of thing in the future. Or maybe it was just something that was out of his control…maybe he was just as surprised at the size of the signed bookplates but it was too late to do anything about it. Who knows.

To reiterate: the book itself, with that minor one page caveat, looks wonderful and I can’t wait to dig into it. The other issues may be a little disappointing, but the book itself is the important bit and that looks like they got it about 99% correct. Can’t wait to see who was able to lose their minds enough to match Fletcher Hanks’ illustrated insanity.

Without getting into the entire series of circumstances here (which you can read about in this article), the new fairly-well-anticipated ongoing Red Hood series that came out last Wednesday has already been canceled by DC Comics, who issued a statement regarding “standard of conduct” policies, credited the full cost of the comics back to retailers, and, I don’t know, probably salted the earth besides.

Anyway, I had a few copies still on the shelf come Thursday morning following the news of the series’ ending, for which I had a sudden influx of folks immediately interested in picking it up. Sometimes even multiple copies.

Now, when I posted about this on Bluesky, I had some folks asking maybe if they were being bought to be destroyed in protest of the comic’s writer, and no, I didn’t get that vibe from anyone. Most likely it’s either 1) curiosity about the comic itself, or (especially in the case of the multiple issue pick-ups) 2) immediate flipping on the eBays. Sure enough, we’ve got some wild prices on that #1 over there already, so “an ill wind…” and all that.

It’s a weird situation, brought about by the most unfortunate events. And just so we’re clear…no matter how abhorrent or even dangerous I found the man’s beliefs, shooting him was not the answer. If anything, regardless of the shooter’s reasons for doing so, it’s just made things more difficult in sociopolitical conditions that are already deeply damaged.

And frankly, given some of the man’s past statements, I can understand why the comic’s writer would be extremely unhappy with him. And that’s fine. You don’t have to like anyone. You don’t even have to mourn someone you didn’t like when they’re gone. But let’s draw the line at, like, shooting them. Maybe just yell at them instead.

Sigh. I said I wasn’t going to get into it, but it’s kind of hard not to. I didn’t even want to write about this for today’s post, but I felt like I just couldn’t ignore it. So there you go, a real world ugly political mess that’s pushed its way into comics. Not what anybody wanted.

And please, also, don’t forget the victims of the Evergreen High School shooting that happened the same day. Or the Historically Black Colleges that are under lockdown over what will hopefully be spurious bomb threats.

Just…be careful out there. And be good to each other.