Month: October 2015

There are several creative teams that I can recommend to new readers without knowing anything about the content of their books. Brian K. Vaughan, Ed Brubaker, and Gail Simone are up there. So is Greg Rucka. His run on Gotham Central (co-writing with Brubaker) about the police officers negotiating Batman’s city changed the way we read cop stories and, by extension, how we view superheroes, and I do not think DC’s television landscape would exist without that proof of concept. His work on Lazarus has provided one of my all-time favorite examples of character-driven science fiction, and his heroine is right there with Buffy in my heart. So it is safe to say I could not take on this week’s assignment free from giddy bias.

This only compounded when I saw that Nicola Scott was doing the art duties here. Her work is gorgeous and true, like real life if you and all of your friends had perfectly-rounded butts and always knew how to stand so you looked comfortable and sexy at the same time. Her work on Earth 2 kept me hooked even after the one gay supporting character met the wrong end of a bullet train in the first issue.

I am thrilled to report that the first issue of Black Magick delivers everything I want in a Rucka-Scott project. The story is a perfect Halloween read – Detective Rowan Black is called out of a Fall Equinox Wiccan ritual to handle a hostage situation in town. She’s tough and witty, and she handles the tense situation with humor and confidence even when the hostage-taker reveals his links to her occult identity and suggests the brewing of a dangerous war. It’s a perfect cold-open. We have met this amazing woman, we’ve got tantalizing details about her magical nature, we’ve got a tone that can support a solemn spiritual ritual alongside a joke about cell phones and an action sequence, and we’ve started one Hell of a mystery. The art is largely in shades of grey, but the magical elements (candles, spells, flames) dance off the page in coruscating vivid hues. Nicola Scott is a master of stage blocking, spinning her camera around tight spaces with the utmost preserved details, and the reader closes this book with an unmistakeable sense that opening credits are about to roll. I want everyone to hit Ultimate Comics and read this book, but I almost want more to see this fast-tracked to a TV series so I can roll my hipster eyes at having already read it when everyone in America falls under its spell.

-Matt Conner for Ultimate Comics

Clean Room
Writer Gail Simone
Artist/Colorist Jon Davis-Hunt
DC Comics (Vertigo imprint)

Gail Simone is a familiar creator to North Carolina Comicon fans. Two years ago, she sat on panels to discuss women in comics and the representation of lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender characters. Huge crowds showed up to see her, and her unmistakeable warmth and wit infused even her most pointed critiques of the industry. She has written some of the biggest characters for a variety of publishers, including Deadpool, Batgirl, the Birds Of Prey, Red Sonja, and villain team The Secret Six. So when Alan suggested I review her new horror comic, I kind of stopped listening after her name came up.

This issue is very much a set-up for the main series rather than a story all to itself. After a frightening opening scene involving the traumatic injury of a young girl, the book devotes itself to exploring its main character, Chloe. Chloe attempts suicide after her fiance shoots himself, but when she survives, she decides to dedicate her life to avenging Philip’s death. See, before he went for his gun, he read a bizarre self-help book by Astrid Mueller, charismatic leader of something between a cult and a psychology movement. It’s not quite Scientology, but readers of Going Clear will find plenty of unpleasant reminders. As Chloe jumps a series of hurdles to reach her meeting with Mueller, she develops some startling horrific hallucinations, and these seem connected to a mysterious part of the cult involving the Clean Room.

Readers of Gail Simone’s work are going to love this book, even though it’s unlike anything she’s written before. It’s a marvel of restraint and tone, a seventies-style slow-burn thriller with connections to some of the more frightening quasi-religious excesses of the modern world. Characters are nailed in a page or two, becoming unforgettably distinct, and I am genuinely afraid for Chloe as she prepares to move her vendetta forward. This is going to make a great Halloween treat.

Come on down to Ultimate Comics in Chapel Hill or Raleigh to pick this book up, and make sure you get your tickets to next month’s North Carolina Comicon to see who your next favorite writer’s going to be.

Matt Conner for Ultimate Comics

Paper Girls #1
Writer Brian K. Vaughan
Artist Cliff Chiang
Image Comics, Inc

Pop quiz: without Googling, name a single bad story Brian K. Vaughan has written. It’s going to be impossible. From Runaways to Y: The Last Man to Ex Machina to Saga, this man has a grasp on character, setting, and tone that is unbelievable. When I found out his new ongoing series was going to pair him up with Cliff Chiang (coming to next month’s North Carolina Comic Con!), I knew I was going to love this book, whatever it turned out to be.

And man, was it great.

The story is that Erin is a twelve-year old girl delivering papers the day after Halloween in 1988 Ohio. After a run-in with mean teenage boys, she joins three other female paper delivery kids to finish the route. Two of them get attacked by a few strange figures in dark robes, and by the end of the issue, we have set up a gripping Papergirls-versus-Aliens story.

This isn’t Saga. Nothing is Saga. But man, this may edge Runaways out for second place. The writer loves these characters, each efficiently distinuished in a very small page count. Mac is the chain-smoking foul-mouthed protective leader, KJ is the athletic peacemaker, and Tiff is the smart one into finances and technology. They don’t feel like stereotypes or cookie-cutter team roles, and in one of the main action sequences, Tiff swings KJ’s lacrosse stick, showing that Vaughan refuses to limit his leads to one role apiece. Cliff Chiang’s art gorgeously describes these girls as girls, not adult women drawn a little smaller, and his aliens are pretty darn scary.

I loved this book, plain and simple. Get down to Ultimate Comics in Chapel Hill or Raleigh, grab a copy while there’s any left on the shelves, and get a nice Cliff Chiang autograph on it in six weeks.

Matt Conner for Ultimate Comics