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REQUIRED READING
The Dozen Comics Series' That Made Unca Cheeks Smile and Smile Most During the Last Twelve Months (Give or Take): Pt. 1
Contrary to popular misconception I don't absolutely
loathe and despise all comics currently being conceived; created; and/or
distributed today. 
Granted, the mainstream (or even quasi-mainstream,
for that matter) comics I don't find crass and unspeakable in the extreme
are vastly outnumbered by the far more massive phalanx of those I do
regard as flagrant violations of the Geneva Conference articles of warfare.
We live, after all, in an age in which both tastes and standards have been steadily
eroded and bastardized by two decades-plus of X-MEN sales supremacy; of totemization
of the continuity-obsessed fanboyus pinheadus as the "rightful" audience
for all mainstream fare; and the exaltion of Rob Liefeld as a major industry
"talent." Just to name three contributing factors to the ongoing
overall creative malaise nowadays, mind.
Given as salted and barren a patch o' artistic land
such as that to toil in... little wonder, then, that we've been "blessed"
with such a right bumper crop of inedible little meta-fictive turnips, of late.
Still it certainly isn't impossible,
by any means, to find intelligent and craftsmanlike works out there, given the
requisite amount of due diligence (and assuming one has cast a wide enough net).
Certain creators, in particular -- a Grant Morrison, here; a Chuck
Dixon, there -- may nearly always be counted upon to deliver the storytelling
"goods," nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of every thousand.
Just as it was in the Silver and Bronze Ages -- when
one actively sought out titles blessed with the energies and invention of (say)
Jack Kirby; Gardner Fox; Dennis O'Neil; or Steve Englehart
-- it pays to be "brand name" conscious. You find a superior creator;
you follow him (or -- nowadays -- her, possibly), rather than
slavishly beholdening oneself to a given comics company, or character.
As writer/artist John Byrne has so sagely expressed
it, on more than one occasion "It's the singer; NOT the song."
The dozen comics series' which follow, on this page
and the next, are the twelve which I found most entertaining and worthwhile,
over the course of the last year or so. For those of you out there who
keep asking and asking, via e-mail "... so which books
are you reading nowadays, then...?" knock it off, already.
A few notable exceptions from this list will be readily
apparent to the more astute reader. Frank Miller's SIN CITY had
a "slow" year (due to that worthy's having focused the bulk of his attentions
elsewhere), and thus didn't make its usual place on my "short-short" list.
STARMAN has (in my humble opinion) "dragged," of late, in the course of its
lengthy "space travel" epic. The jury is still out, in these quarters,
on MAGE II and INHUMANS; and my inclination to limit this list to comics still
readily available to the interested reader meant that such laudable efforts
as MAJOR BUMMER and CHASE received rather shorter shrift, in this instance,
than they might otherwise have merited. (And Mark Waid's recent
KINGDOM opus is [rightfully] slated for its own separate close-up examination,
in the months to come. Just in case you were all wondering about that.)
With those codicils in mind, then these twelve
were (and remain) the brightest spots in my comics year, at any rate.
# 12 On any major league baseball team
(yes; this is going to be another one of Unca Cheeks' baseball metaphors, here.
Deal with it.), there is a particularly invaluable position player commonly
known as "the utility infielder."
Said player is (typically) worth double his own weight
in Spanish gold doubloons to any team seriously contending for a play-off spot
within their assigned league and/or division. While the "superstar" position
players -- your slick-fielding shortstop; your powerhouse "slugger" third baseman;
etc. -- may grab the lion's share of serious THIS WEEK IN BASEBALL "face time"
throughout the lengthy course of the season... it's the (comparatively) unheralded
likes of a Rex Hudler or a Tom Zeile who keep said team's pennant
race "machine" humming whenever one of the Big Money Players goes down hard
with the inevitable hamstring pull, or what-have-you.
Players such as these -- multi-talented "switch hitters"
(if you will) -- are, in many respects, the backbones of their respective
teams. The fans may take 'em for granted ("may," hell; do)... but just ask any one of their fellow professionals how necessary they truly
are, next time you get the opportunity to do so.
In comic book terms (solely as "f'rinstance," mind) longtime Marvel Comics artist Sal Buscema was one such utility infielder.
During DC's Silver Age, penciler Dick Dillin was another. Never
"hot" comics convention tickets, certainly; never lauded or hyped as being especially
"collectible" in the pages of the yearly OVERSTREET guide. And all they
were was absolutely
essential, is all.
DC Comics writer Chuck Dixon is (to my mind)
today's ablest, most invaluable utility infielder...
... and -- with the four-part CONJURORS mini-series
-- it looks as if this most deserving of gentlemen has produced the equivalent
of an inside-the-park homer.
[See cover reproduction, accompanying]
The premise is elegant in its barebones simplicity an "alternate reality" version of the comfortingly familiar DC Universe, in
which it is sorcery, not science, which has been ascendant over the aeons...
... and then, one day all the magic just...
vanishes.
It's a well-thought-out little tale, with writer Dixon
covering every last conceivable plot point or objection you can think of...
and then some. (Modern-day merchant ocean freighters, for example,
utilizing "weather wizards" in place of navigators; surgical procedures routinely
being handled by shamen, rather than surgeons; etc.)
The ragtag assemblage of "heroes" gathered together to investigate and (with
any luck) remedy this cosmic-level calamity -- a handsome, faith healing,
media-savvy Brother Power (no longer a "geek");
a working-for- the-White-House Klarion, the Witch-Boy;
an smart-alecky, adolescent Stanley, complete with feral, shambling "monster";
etc. -- is oddball enough of one to afford Dixon the opportunity to pull any
number of cute characterization-type "rabbits" out of his auctorial hat, page
in and page out... while still remaining familiar enough to the long-time reader
to serve readily and seamlessly as both narrators and protagonists, in
turn.
This series is nothing less than an absolute gem...
and Dixon has yet to play his final storytelling "trump," as of this
writing.
The first half of this meta-fictive wonder (issues
#1 and #2) should still be available, wherever you happen to be buying your
books now.
Grab 'em.
#11 If it weren't for the endlessly
innovative likes of writer Mark Evanier... modern-day mainstream comics
would be even more relentlessly humorless; soul-deadening; and "Clairmont"-ized
than they are right now. (As horrifying a prospect as that might
be to consider.)
Mark's six-part FANBOY limited series -- in storytellingconjunction
with long-time GROO THE WANDERER accomplice Sergio Aragones, as well
as a small flotilla of penciling "special guest stars" -- takes a good, healthy
(and much-overdue) whack! at the over-stuffed piñata of
modern comics fanboy pretentiousness and narcissistic self-absorption.
And, oh! The delightful four- color candies which come tumbling
out -- !
[See cover reproduction, accompanying]
The all- fanboys-in-one target du jour, in this
instance, is the terminally clueless Finster; a typically obsessive,
"Walter Mitty"-ish comics junkie who toils for the minimum wage at the local
comics shop ("It's a great job, if you don't miss the little things,"
Finster enthuses. "You know... like vacations... pay... oxygen...");
fantasizes of one day becoming the latest WIZARD Magazine-anointed "hot" artist
of the month; and lusts with steadfast (if ineffectual) sincerity over staggeringly
beautiful women who wouldn't go out with him for all the money in Bill Gates'
checking account.
The
satire (while often pointed) is never anything less than spot-on. (One
particularly delicious example a contemplative Finster muses that "...
when I was younger, I used to wonder what the essential difference was
between men and women... but since I hit teen-age, the
difference has become obvious. The men all want to kill
me, and the women all want me to drop dead on my own.")
One might, I suppose, reasonably advance the notion that mocking the modern-day
comics fanboy is roughly as daunting an intellectual challenge as cheating a
four-year-old at Trivial Pursuit...
... but that doesn't make it any less falling-down
hysterical to watch.
There's a not-inconsiderable amount of affronted online
huffing and puffing, on the part of various comics fans, to the effect that
"... well... I, for one, didn't find it 'funny'! No, sir!
Not one little bit!" Which only proves Mark's point, of
course.
#10 Given that I've already rhapsodized,
at not-inconsiderable length, over the wonder and the glory that is Mark
Waid's CAPTAINAMERICA,
on this site... I'll simply limit myself to the following observation, in this
particular:
There are (as of this writing) two -- and only
two -- storytelling "eras" on which each and every last "Cap"-fan readily invests
the accolade "classic."
The first of these is the lengthy, never surpassed (and seldom equaled)
tenure of fabled CAPTAIN AMERICA (co-)creator,
Jack "King" Kirby, during the (creatively) white-hot Marvel
Comics Group "Silver Age" of the 1960s.
The second, of course, was the audacious high-
wire act that was writer Steve Englehart's radicalization (and virtual
re-invention) of the character in the 1970s, during its wonderful
CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE FALCON incarnation.
Decades from now people will -- I stone
guarantee it -- mention Mark Waid's vigorous and intelligent "Cap" stories
in the same breath as these.
Shame, shame on you if you aren't picking these
books up right NOW.
#9 You know sometimes, your Unca
Cheeks really and truly does know of despair.
He goggles at the unwanted realization that enough
of you, out there, made a self-adoring, anti-intellectual snake oil salesman
like Todd McFarlane wealthy and prosperous enough that he can drop a
casual three mill on one of Mark McGwire's 1998 season home run balls.
He awakens a-shudder, each and ev'ry morn, at the knowledge
that there are those for whom the terms comic book and Marvel mutants
are all but interchangeable
ones.
... and he all but weeps himself into bitter,
resentment-racked slumber each evening anew, knowing that there are those who
have yet to read their very first issue of writer/artist Donna Barr's
magnificent, one-of-a-kind THE DESERT PEACH. [See cover reproduction,
accompanying]
In a sane and perfectly-ordered society such
an occurrence simply wouldn't be possible.
This published-whenever- she-damned-well- feels-like
it black- and-white series concerns itself with the (alternately) lunatic and
endearing (mis)adventures of one "Pfirsich Rommel" the openly, flagrantly
gay younger brother of notorious Nazi Erwin ("The Desert Fox") Rommel.
Okay. I'll readily grant you World War
II (in general) and the marrow-freezing horror which was the Nazi movement of
that era (in particular) is not the sort of stuff from which most
creators could craft so much as even a single truly f-u-n-n-y story;
situation; or scene. The nightmare was too gargantuan and grotesque a
one for facile japery; no one with a viable claim to even the merest vestige
a human soul could reflect upon skies black with human soot and ash and think "... now, that's FUNNY!"
Thankfully, however that's anything but
what La Barr has been up to over the years, with this series.
The fictitious "Pfirsich Rommel" was placed in charge
of anAfrika
Corps army battalion by his brother, the elder Rommel -- in an attempt to protect
his beloved (and studiedly pacifistic) sibling, you see; gays being no more
loved or tolerated by the Nazis than any other minority; sort of a "hide-in-
plain-sight" scenario, if you see what I'm getting at, here -- staffed with
the most incredible assortment of maladroits and malcontents you've ever bloody
seen in any comic book not headlined by one of the characters
from Chuck Jones' studio.
The patient and protective Pfirsich (in turn) -- who dreams wistfully of the
day he can return once more to a peaceful homeland, and attend tea cotillions
-- mothers and frets over his equally non-violent "charges" with all the single-minded
solicitude of a Teutonic mother hen.
Think "M*A*S*H meets
The Boys In the Band," here... and you'll have it just about right.
Lookit the book is just a clutching-desperately-at-your-sides-while-
simultaneously-trying-to-keep-the-soda-squirting-out-from-your-nose scream,
all right? It's Mel Brooks' infamous "Springtime For Hitler" routine (from
The Producers)...
... with an evil, sardonic shiv secreted up
one cunningly taffeta'd sleeve.
No one who's ever taken The Unca Cheeks Challenge on
this comic (i.e., "For the love of all that's holy! Read this --
!") has ever come back to him with a thumbs-down after the experience.
I repeat no one.
Not EVER.
#8 The "rap" on writer Peter David,
in some online circles, is this that he (so the belief goes) "writes
to the bit."
What that means -- this "writing to the bit"
business -- is Peter David (putatively) sacrifices plot; characterization;
theme; and/or the proper placement of staples along the spine whenever he thinks
of something... y'know... funny to place into one of his stories.
Overlooking, for the moment, that this bizarre postulate
rests (and none too steadily, I might add) upon the demonstrably unworkable
assumption that neither plot; characterization; nor theme can ever be advanced
by the use of humor in storytelling... I'd just like to offer the following,
by way of retort:
Bite Me.
There has been -- in all of recorded human history -- precisely one
"great" HULK writer; only one writer, since the
three-decades-agone Steve Skeates to write AQUAMAN
in such a way as to make it (however briefly) a "hot"
fan favorite title; and -- more to the point -- but ONE writer top find a new
"wrinkle" on the hoary old comics cliche of the "kid's group" since the
introduction of THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES, back
in the early 1960s.
Said "twist," in this instance, goes by the name of
YOUNG JUSTICE... and what it is, really, is Nothing Short of a
Minor Storytelling Miracle, is all.
[See cover reproduction, accompanying]
Check this out for a radical idea David
actually allows the characters to act like for-real, no
foolin' KIDS, instead of miniaturized, eerily-competent adults.
Oh, yeah. There's an example of bum characterization.
Said "kids," in this particular series' line-up --
Superboy; Impulse; Robin; Wonder Girl; etc. -- do
anything and EVERYthing that you and I would do, in the unforseen
cosmic event that we'd been left Powers Above and Beyond Those of Ordinary
Men by a universe too bone-stupid to realize what an incalculable error it was
making at the time. They spray paint the legend HANSON SUCKS all
over their android "guardian"; they lie shamelessly to their respective super-powered
mentors; and bicker non-stop over which one gets to ride "shotgun" in their
team vehicle.
Most importantly, however -- and not to hammer the
point home unduly -- they. act. like.
KIDS. dammit.
If that's "writing to the bit"... then, brother put me down for an additional side order of eighteen or twenty o' dem
fries.
This series -- much like Grant Morrison's JLA;
much like Mark Waid's KINGDOM; much like the "No Man's Land" story arc,
currently running throughout the various BATMAN-related
titles --was predestined (to hear the online savants snuffle and sneer over
it, before its debut) to Suck Mightily.
That pretty much tells you everything you need to know
about the comparative sagacity of fannish "wisdom" right there.
#7 Alan Moore should be declared a bloody
national resource.
He doesn't have to give us stuff such as THE
LEAGUE OF
EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, after all. He made his storytelling "rep" long
ago, with such attention-snaring mega-hits as SWAMP THING and THE WATCHMEN.
Like fellow U.K. expatriates Neil Gaiman (now a successful prose stylist)
and Grant Morrison (accomplished playwright) he hasn't actually
needed to "slum" in the mainstream American comics ghetto for a good
long while, now.
Anything he does within the (oftentimes) stifling storytelling
constraints of this benighted medium, nowadays... he does because he either:
a.) jolly well chooses to; or --
b.) because he (inexplicably) likes us
that much.
Whichever the impetus -- "a" or "b" -- I'm certainly
thankful the generous and talented sir chose to indulge in it, insofar
as the (frankly) mind-boggling THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN is concerned.
Showcasing the same meticulous-bordering-on-the-outright-obsessive
attention to historical
verisimilitude which typified his efforts on the staggeringly successful (both
artistically and commercially) "Jack the Rippper" pastiche FROM
HELL, Mr. Moore has managed the not- inconsiderable feat of lashing together
such wildly disparate meta-fictive archetypes as Edgar Allen Poe's C.
August Dupin; Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Henry Jekyll;
Jules Verne's Captain Nemo (my own personal favorite of the lot, thus
far; see page reproduction, accompanying) into an intelligently conceived (and
rigorously logical) turn-of- the-century adventuring alliance of sorts the aforementioned "League."
Lushly illustrated by the severely underrated Kevin
O'Neill, the entire affair is awash in the heady fragrance of old "men's
adventure" pulps, and WWII-era radio adventure shows; two storytelling mediums
which have always held unique and powerful fascination for me. It is (blessedly)
as endlessly enthralling an exercise as it is a literate one.
It is -- push come to shove -- Alan Moore, playing
at the very peak of his chosen "game."
I simply cannot recommend this series enough, or too
highly.
The Top Six Books of the past year (in your Unca Cheeks'
estimation); coming right up, on Page Two of REQUIRED READING.
C'mon and see what all the cool kids are reading
this season.
"REQUIRED READING The Dozen Comics Series' That Made Unca Cheeks Smile and
Smile Most During the Last Twelve Months (Give or Take)" (PAGE TWO)
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