Comic Reading

I've been reading a few of the latest trade paperbacks recently. First up is Mind Mgmt (no, not a misspelling) from Matt Kindt. A reporter and author, Meru, tries to complete her book on an airline flight where everyone lost their memory.

Although the art work is a little too sketchy for me, the story line is quite good, something along the lines of the TV series Fringe or "Life During Wartime" by Lucius Shepard, with secret organisations and mind control.

Following on from this was The Nowhere Men by Eric Stephenson (writer) and Nate Bellegarde (artist). Science multinational World Corp tries to recover some of it's employees lost during the explosion aboard a space station, while avoiding public exposure and fighting off the attentions of one of it's original founders.

Although the art work is pretty good, this first instalment was a little confused and fractured. Was it a story about the scientists who set up World Corp, or a story about the team aboard the station and what happened to them? It seems like an opportunity squandered at the moment, but, hopefully, it will improve.

The third is Sex Criminals, by Matt Fraction (writer) and Chip Zdarsky (artist). On finding they both have a unique ability, two people decide to use it rob banks, but find they don't have it all their own way...

Quite funny and an original story, the artwork is pleasing to the eye. I don't think it'll get onto TV, though.

Top Ten

As some may know, I've been a comic book fan for getting on decades. I've been going through the collection weeding out those that can be donated to the charity shop, having read them and not thought them worthy of keeping, and it occurred to me to set out a list of the best ones (so far).

Concrete, by Paul Chadwick.
I read these stories when I was in my mid-twenties and,  having now collected them in trade paperback (TP) format, they are still excellent. They move comics from the super-hero vs villains format to telling truly human stories.

The Treasury of Murder Series by Rick Geary
This true murder series, spanning the 19th and 20th centuries, seem a little bit like CSI, but Rick has turned them into works of art far superior to anything on TV. The books have a truly Gothic feel to them.

100 Bullets by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso
The ultimate comic crime series. No super-heroes, no cops, just bad, bad, people trying to stay alive. The first stories were excellent, really hard boiled, making Sin City look like a Doris Day movie. After that, it seemed to get embroiled in a dark conspiracy plot that I just found to be confusing. I've got all the TP's so I'll probably give it another go at some point.

Scalped by Jason Aaron and R. M. Guéra
My current favourite crime comic at the moment. Think Raymond Chandler on a Native American Reservation.

The Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba
Okay, if you want a super-hero comic book, I'll give you this one. This will blow your mind. It's what League of Extraordinary Gentlemen should really have been, but funny, rather than just pompous.

BPRD and Hellboy
I've included these together as they represent the work of Mike Mignola, even though he's not having much to do with them these days. Plus the movies weren't bad.

The Losers by Andy Diggle and Jock
The movie was okay, but it came out at the same time as The Expendables and The A-Team and got lumped in with them. Not only was the movie better than the others (oh, yes it was) but the comic books were better than the movie.

Stray Toasters by Bill Sienkiewicz [pronounced sin-KEV-itch]
A work of true genius, and I don't say that lightly. You know the saying that there is a thin line between genius and madness. Well I think that he must have wandered over the line a few times doing this. The fourth, and last, issue didn't seem to have a proper cover, it was just black, until you tilted it and it caught the light. It was gloss black printed on matte.

DMZ by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli
This is an unusual war comic book, about as far removed from Sargent Rock and Major Eazy as you could ever get.

Queen and Country by Greg Rucka
Back in the seventies, there used to be a spy series called The Sandbaggers. Not Bond or even Le Carre. It inspired this series about MI6 operatives.

Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson
Although it tails off a bit at the end, this is Ellis's magnum opus and what a work it is. The first episode is free to download if you can find it.

Okay, eleven, but I had to include the last one. In addition, the following are ones that I think are worth an mention:

Northlander by Brian Wood
A comic book about Vikings, but see his other work above.

Unwritten by Mike Carey and Peter Gross
What would happen to someone if the stories written about them became real.

The Boys by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson
Despite the ultra-violence (which is what happened to spoil Ennis' Preacher) a worthwhile attempt at the anti-super-hero genre.

Cerebus by Dave Sim
This holds the record for being the longest English-language comic book by a single team (Usagi Yojimbo has the overall record). It's also self published, no one having the patience to handle Sim for any length of time. I only managed to keep up as far as Reads, Volume 9, but I got single issues up to Going Home, Volume 13. I liked it mainly because of the art work, which always draws me into a comic and Cerebus is fantastic to look at, the high water mark being Rick's Story, which looks like a modern Book of Kells.

From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
Why this one and not Watchmen or V For Vendetta? It's the notes in the back of the book which make this so good. You don't realise how much research goes into a comic book like this, and this alone made it worth a mention.