Kill Audio #1 — Writers: Claudio Sanchez and Chondra Echert; Art: Mr. Sheldon
Strange enough to be worth a look, like some hallucinatory cartoon episode you’d see on Adult Swim, loaded with obscure music references and weird violence but with added drug references (those, plus the violence, are kind of startling coming from a Boom! book, especially considering there’s no “mature readers” label or anything). You’ve got a dwarf, a skeleton, a chicken and a pillow (I think) all on a quest, one that moves from an urban setting to a sort-of steampunk/medieval one; the story can be sophomoric at times (literally: it reads as if it were created by really really bright and indie-culrurally tuned-in 20-year-olds), but the art, precise and quirky and stylized, carries it along past the rough edges and makes it all work. I could see this becoming the kind of cult hit that, say, Jonny the Homicidal Maniac was, and with much the same crowd.
Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #599 — Writers: Giorgio Salatiamy, Riccardo Sacchi; Art: Ettore Gula, Roberta Mighelli and Stefano Turconi
Another Boom! book, very different than Kill Audio, although it’s got some of the same off-kilter sensibility; the stories are from Italian creators (as if the names in the credits didn’t make that obvious), and, like Mickey Mouse like week, they aren’t your father’s Disney Universe; the colors and angles are… different, more undergroundy than mainstream, and the characters, while recognizable, are a lot more off-model than I can remember Disney ever allowing before, tilting more toward Gilbert Shelton than Carl Barks. There’s an Uncle Scrooge story and a Mickey-plus-everybody-else story, and the plots of both involve super-villains and super-heroes; that’s weird for Disney, too. It’s clear that they’re going for an audience of, oh, 8-12-year-old modern kids, and not adult Disney collectors, and that’s fine; whether it will work, or lose both audiences in trying to split the middle, remains to be seen.
From the Ashes #5 (of 6) — Writer/Artist: Bob Fingerman.
Well, there’s a twist at the end that explains the exaggerated pop-culture parody stuff pretty well, and sets everything off in a much grimmer direction (yes, grimmer than survivors traipsing around a post-apocalyptic landscape), but I’m not sure I buy it; there might be another twist or two left. For one thing (and I’m speaking carefully here, so as not to give too much away), if the current twist is “real,” then the narrative before that is based on something of a cheat — it shouldn’t have been able to switch between the two main characters’ POVs the way it did, especially when they were separated. Maybe that’s over-intellectualizing things too much, but hey: this series has had great art all along, but never quite managed to get its story untracked; with only one issue to go, it’s still got a shot, but I’m not sure it’s going to be able to pull it off, and that’s disappointing for someone who was a fan of Fingerman’s earlier Minimum Wage.
Models, Inc. #2 (of 4) — Writer: Paul Tobin; Pencils: Vicenc Villagrasa; Inks: Gary Martin
The first issue of this mini-series involving Marvel’s fashion contingent (Patsy Walker, Millie the Model and Chili, etc., etc.) showed a little potential, but by now it’s become a standard soap-opera mystery story, with lots of characters and a mean police officer and thugs and guns, and I don’t see the audience for it: male superhero fans won’t care (no action, no costumes, no cheesecake), and any female readers who might be attracted by the magazine-style cover or the runway setting will just be confused and bored. Not to be a reverse chauvinist or anything, but why get a guy to write this? Kathryn Immonen, whose charming, clever Hellcat mini-series last year was so much fun, and accessible to all readers, would have been the perfect choice here. Tobin isn’t awful, but he’s tone-deaf when it comes to attracting any new readers, and that’s what this book desperately needs.
Justice League: Cry for Justice #4 (of 7) — Writer: James Robinson; Art: Mauro Cascioli
Meh. Robinson has enough characterization ability that it’s hard to make fun of this; it’s got some redeeming value, and it isn’t actively embarrassing; on the other hand, it’s something like 50 characters running around, arguing about stupid crap, and we’re at the point in the story arc where it’s mostly setting up later confrontations, so little actually happens. Cascioli’s painted figures and landscapes are sure staged prettily, but he isn’t very good at action sequences; everybody looks posed, and there’s no sense of movement. For readers who think the world already has enough JLA books, this won’t change their minds.
Starr the Slayer #2 (of 4) — Writer: Daniel Way; Art: Richard Corben
As with the first issue, the attraction is the Corben art: the story is no great shakes, and kind of creepy; plus, the minstrel-narrator is a baffling, disastrous choice, annoying enough to actively repel readers. If you’re a Corben fan, white out all the words and look at the pictures.
Star Trek: Romulans: Schism #2 (of 4) — Writer/Artist: John Byrne.
Byrne delivers what he always does: skillful art, standard-but-interesting characters, complicated-but-followable plotting, a professional and readable package (he’s underappreciated for his talent at construction, I think — everything in his stories fits together just so; if he were a carpenter, he’d be putting together solid, craftsmanlike chairs that would last forever). Whether you want this depends on how big a fan you are, and on your tolerance for Star Trek stories that show a deep knowledge of that universe, but feature none of the “familiar” casts (and, too, for chief-engineer dialog like “… the thing sucks power like a Regellian volt beetle after a long winter!”).
Phil Mateer
