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REVIEWS // 12.05.02 Far From Saints • Plastic Farm • The Power Company • Three Days in Europe • Shonen Jump FAR
FROM SAINTS #1 This is a one shot collection of a back-up story that appeared in the limited series TWO OVER TEN, and as writer Myatt Murphy notes in his introduction on the inside cover, this story generated as much talk as its lead feature. And with good reason. FAR FROM SAINTS is one of those ambitious stories that writers always conceive in their heads but can't quite make work as it pours out onto the page. Thankfully, Murphy succeeds where may writers wouldn't. The story focuses around a forgotten man who stumbles into (or is selected by God) a group of similarly forgotten individuals charged with protecting humanity and overseeing God's creation. Murphy
introduces so many colorful characters from various time periods
that it's actually hard to keep them all straight. But it helps
give the story its breathless quality as things keep moving along
at a brisk pace. Murphy doesn't slow things down for the protagonist
to take it all in or give long soliloquies about the nature of God
and man. That's the trap many young writers would fall into, and
Murphy wisely sidesteps it and keeps hitting us over the head with
more details and developments in this absurd It turns out that the world is facing certain destruction from the most unlikely of places, and the group of-well, what mortals might traditionally call saints but are certainly far from the textbook definition, they have run out of ideas to prevent it. Nothing that they've tried or thought of before works, and their last resort fails utterly and surprisingly over the course of a few panels. The final solution (HINT: Nothing in life is certain but ____ and ____) proves surprising, ingenious, funny, and satisfying all at the same time. Dalrymple's art is what anyone who reads their present collaboration in FADE FROM BLUE has come to expect. Clear panels, well-transitioned panels, and an intuitive sense of storytelling that ranges from compressed action to decompressed composition. FAR
FROM SAINTS is a perfect sampler for Murphy and Dalrymple's work.
And if (Dave Potter) * * * PLASTIC
FARM #4 Rafer Roberts's PLASTIC FARM is a gleefully anarchic mess of a comic, which the author himself would readily admit. Ostensibly, it's the story of Chester "Cheezer" Carter, a damaged man who shambles through life with a dinosaur-riding cowboy living in his head; but it's also much more than that-I mean, isn't it always? It's also an ambitious epic that will take about 50 issues or so to tell. Think of it as Dave Sim meets David Lynch at Rod Serling's tea party. And what a lovely tea party it is…. This magazine-sized monster of a comic with beautifully constructed color covers and interesting commentary from the author typifies all that's good about self-published comics. They're just much more intimate than anything anyone else has to offer. It's like the difference between a small band you see at a club and the big, slick arena rockers with their beach balls and highly impersonal "Hellooooo (insert your city here)!" This issue is a stand-alone tale about the love between a pilot and his wife, spanning from the Vietnam era to present day. A touching story, and a change of pace from the usual surrealism and black comedy, "Bookends" is Roberts's best story so far, and yet another big step in his exponential growth as a storyteller. Every issue shows him pushing himself and not simply breaking the rules for their own sake, but making his own set of rules to follow. It'll truly be interesting to see how this fits into the grand scheme of the story as a whole. At first glance, the art is a bit crude; but that makes very little difference, as every stroke, every line, every splash of ink from Roberts is deliberately calculated. He uses complex panel structures and compresses and decompresses time like a master. It's obvious the guy knows what he's doing. Besides, you only need to know the C, G, and F chords to rock, know what I'm saying? This comic is a garage band on the verge of rock superstardom, and those of you who miss out will, well, hopefully you'll die rotten horrible deaths. Which would be really tragic…I guess. (Jeff Chon) * * * THE
POWER COMPANY #10 This issue spotlights Skyrocket as she ponders how to best handle her uncertain future. The force that held the Power Company business together is out of commission, and no one can tell when he'll be able to return. So she sits in the cluttered apartment that she never finished moving into, wondering what to do and feeling like everything's falling apart. I can definitely relate. Today's economy has put many people in a similar situation (albeit for rather different reasons), and what with daily rumors of war, no one's sure what tomorrow will bring. I liked the way Skyrocket looked around at the life she'd made and learned from that what she felt. I didn't know other people derived knowledge of their feelings that way, by observing themselves from the outside. I also felt sorry for her. She knows she has to play business politics, and even when she decides she's ready to do that, she doesn't know how. Her uncertainty reminded me of the trauma an artist goes though over selling out. Even when someone decides to sacrifice their principles, that doesn't mean anyone's there ready to buy. At least in Skyrocket's case, it's for a greater good, or at least, so she's convinced herself. With all the business problems and unknown voices barking commands at our hero, this isn't an escapist comic. It's hard to be heroic when juggling business deals and the politics of manipulation. The question of what heroism means in this context is almost forgotten in the need to just get through one more day. Ultimately, Skyrocket concludes, as a hero should, that she should try to make her situation better. It looks like she hasn't yet figured out that some situations can't be made better, that sometimes you're only going to damage yourself trying. It's necessary to build conflict in order to justify taking the team in another direction (and ramp up the soap opera without the father figure to keep things under control). I hoped that seeing similar struggles to my own fictionalized would help me gain more perspective on my own situation. Instead, what I'm left with is simple sympathy for a sister in the same boat. Sometimes life, and the fiction that reflects it, has a lot more questions than answers. (Johanna Draper Carlson) * * * THREE
DAYS IN EUROPE #1 I love girl comics. Not comics of the scantily-clad girl variety, mind you. I've never understood those. Just who buys Jim Lee's X-MEN swimsuit issue when the world is full of smut mags and strip clubs? (Well, okay, I know who because I've seen them at the shop, but I still don't get it.) I'm talking about comics written for girls. Of course, there hasn't been much in the way of comics for girls in some time, although thankfully Antony Johnston has written one in THREE DAYS IN EUROPE. The setup is simple: a couple celebrating their three-year dating anniversary each decides to surprise one another with a vacation tailor-made for the other's enjoyment, and each surprise vacation is planned for the same weekend. Much of the issue is spent establishing the characters and setting up the routine of their relationship, followed by the hook of the story (they'll go on separate vacations) and a surprise twist at the end which, like most any romantic comedy doesn't pack much of a surprise, but which makes you smile anyway. What's
not to like about girl comics? When done right, they've got everything
people clamor for in a progressive superhero title (more character
development, more interesting Johnston has certainly written himself a dee-lish girl comic, too. Don't get me wrong-you can enjoy the book and still have hair on your chest, but it's a throwback to old romance comics, reminiscent of romantic comedies like When Harry Met Sally and Annie Hall. I've heard others refer to it as a comic book version of a Tracy and Hepburn film, although it work just as well with Meg Ryan and Hugh Grant, or whoever it is that's popular these days. THREE DAYS IN EUROPE plays even more to the estrogen crowd than Tom Beland's excellent TRUE STORY SWEAR TO GOD, which was until now probably the most hardcore girl comic on the shelves, although even Beland tempered the romance with subplots featuring his kooky, foul-mouthed brother. Johnston, on the other hand, pares away everything but the romance and the relationship between the two protagonists which allows for plenty of solid character development in the first issue. The book is fast-paced and easy to read with sharp, cartoony artwork from Mike Hawthorne. It would make an ideal stocking stuffer for the guys and gals on your shopping list who you're sure would read comics if they were to stumble across one that's smart and slick and accessible. Why do so few women read comics? Because they don't make enough comics like this. (Bryan Miller) * * * SHONEN
JUMP #1 The first of two high profile manga anthologies launches has been released. SHONEN JUMP is the American edition of WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP, the long running best-selling manga anthology from Japan. While there have been manga anthologies in the past, none have sought to capture the mainstream non-comic book reading audience as aggressively that Viz is now attempting. I certainly wish them luck and think that a launch as high profile as this does have a chance to capture the market that makes Tokyopop's manga collections the highest selling trades in bookstores. Yet, is the magazine worth it? Personally, I liked it enough to pick up a yearly subscription, filling out the card immediately after I'd read the magazine. They're offering an introductory price of $19.95 for 12 issues (about 1.66 an issue). I personally am opting for the subscription because while I'm all about supporting my LCS, I think that SHONEN JUMP may be better served with my subscription to boost their circulation numbers in the first year. The packaging: Like a lot of the magazines I read, this one is poly-bagged to protect the included extras (in this case an "ultra-rare" Yu-Gi-Oh game card), so I didn't find SJ's bagging to be a problem. What I found to be odd was presenting a magazine aimed at teen boys (judging by both content and the displayed "Teen" rating) wrapped in pink plastic and a pink cover. I understand the desire to have the magazine stand out, but I feel that a bright red or yellow may have been better. If I were buying SJ a decade ago, I'd be a little iffy on carrying around a pink magazine in public. I felt that the pricing was just right. A great deal of content (288 pages for this issue and the promise of "over 300. . ." next month) for just 4.95. I hope to see more premiums and such that find their homes in Japanese manga weeklies into the SHONEN JUMP though. Though they were basically advertisements, I loved buying manga as a kid and then making my own Gundam standees, Doremon origami and such. The content varied for me personally, so I'll break it down to get more specific. The Manga: Since this is SHONEN JUMP, Viz can only present manga that was published in SJ. Thankfully, SJ has had a long run of huge weekly issues, so they'll never be at a loss for material. I just hope that they begin to showcase Manga that isn't under license in America along with the heavy hitters that are required to initially draw in the audience. It looks like the first several issues will skew towards the latter with Dragon Ball Z, Yu-Gi-Oh, Yu Yu Hakusho (SIC) and One Piece (which is destined for an Anime Americanization). Personally, I would love to see at least one self-contained story per issue. I know that a lot of manga artists don't work in the series format, and unfortunately, these are the artists we find ourselves most unfamiliar with. Also, for the latecomers to SJ, it will provide at least one reader friendly story. The Company Line: (For simplicity's sake, all of the following copy is taken directly from the descriptions on the SHONEN JUMP website, www.shonenjump.com. My own opinions follow.) "Yu-Gi-Oh:
The Millennium Puzzle was made in Egypt at the dawn of time. When
Yugi solved it, he unleashed the spirit of the Game King, a reckless
gambler who possessed Yugi and dragged him into one bizarre challenge
after another--from the card game "Magic and Wizards"
to board games, RPGs, and games beyond your imagination! "Yu Yu Hakusho: Yusuke Urameshi was a tough teen delinquent until one selfless act changed his life...by ending it. When he died saving a little kid from a speeding truck, the afterlife didn't know what to do with him, so he became a troubleshooter who protects the living from ghosts, monsters and demons! The original manga behind the hit Cartoon Network anime!" "One Piece: In a world of pirates, one man wants to become the greatest of them all: Monkey D. Luffy, who gained strange powers from eating the cursed Gum-Gum Fruit! Luffy and his crew, including Nami, a thief and swindler, and Roronoa Zoro, master of the three-sword fighting style, sail the Seven Seas in search of the legendary treasure 'One Piece'." My Brief Thoughts: Yu-gi-oh: While I expected something along the lines of Pokemon, what I got was actually a Captain Marvel style story where a kid (very, very annoying at this point) becomes a hero (actually more of an anti-hero in this story) thanks to a magical puzzle. It's a bit refreshing to see the hero met out justice without resorting to fisticuffs, and the use of contests or games to do so was kind of neat. Make no mistake though, this falls squarely into the "fighting" genre, and will probably bring all of the clichés inherent to this genre in the coming months. Drangon Ball Z: Every time I see DBZ on TV it's a blond guy clenching his buttocks and screaming to build up his chi. Not for me, so I avoid it like the plague. I will say that I liked the extensive background info so that I had some idea of what was going on as I gave the story a shot. Unfortunately, I found the manga to be the fighting genre without the tension because death was merely an inconvenience to these highly powered characters. Again, not for me. The one thing that I hated about this story was that it was several chapters presented at once. I'm aware that the original DBZ was weekly and that presenting just a few chapters would have disappointed the hard-core DBZ contingency, I think that presenting 4 of the weekly chapters with an explanation that this is a months worth of story would have kept the DBZ contingency happy. Also, it would have freed up space for different content and provided a bit more variety. Sand Land, the most recent series from the creator of DBZ, and I found the concept of demons working with a human sheriff to find a lost lake in a post apocalyptic desert wasteland to be much more satisfying than DBZ. The characters were more appealing as the could be injured by holy water, and demons can suffer dehydration effects as well (though not the same ones faced by humans). I found this story to be one of two that I really, really enjoyed and am looking forward to seeing it unfold. Yu-Yu Hakusho: This was a bit too wacky for my tastes. There was nothing patently offensive to my sensibilities or anything, but most of the humor was accompanied by mugging for the reader to let us know this was funny. Personally, I consider it the laugh track of manga, and I usually can't stand it. This was one of those times. The humor skewed a little young and the tale being set up for a dead protector of the living doing good deeds to go to heaven/escape hell/come back to life has been done to death, and the execution didn't appeal to me either. One Piece, what was presented as the first chapter in the ongoing series was originally ran as a one shot that was picked up and expanded to series length due to it's popularity in Weekly Shonen Jump. This story is the crown jewel in the book for me and along with Sand Land is the reason I will by buying SJ. It had an art style that seems equally culled from traditional manga, American comic books and Disney (with a sea monster taken directly from "The Little Mermaid") and a story line that looks to take "The Hero's Quest" dresses it up in a boy with Plastic Man-like elasticity seeking to become king of the pirates make it very unique with what Americans normally see of manga. It was funny, had a great character (the Pirate Captain, whom I hope is a recurring character), and while the story telling was shaky in spots, there was a great sense of lay out and design. I've already recommended it to Johanna Draper Carlson of www.comicsworthreading.com (she also writes for SAVANT here), because I think she'll enjoy it, and I'm fairly certain that others of you will as well. With the fact that the anime has been completed in Japan and already completely collected, I'm certain that we will see the show reach our shores (possibly for ADV's 24 hour anime cable channel they've announced, or more likely for The Cartoon Network's Adult Swim). The magazine is rated teen and with good reason. Yu-Gi-Oh and Yu-Yu Hakusho contain a number of "damns" and "hells", and YYH goes so far as to show the underage protagonist smoking and sneaking peeks at his female classmate's underwear. Though DBZ and YGO are popular with kids (these are magazines, manga, etc. I see the kids reading in bookstores), I know how many parents will find this magazine appropriate for their younger ones, and are advised to give a look through first. Non-Manga: Along with all of the manga, there was an explanation/history lesson given with each story. It told how the anime series differ from what they will be reading, how many volumes the manga has been collected in and a short 10 question interview not only with each artist, but with the series editor (someone I've never ever thought about until I read SJ). Akira Toriyama, arguably the most famous manga creator to SJ's target audience, had a 6-page interview. Because it was printed after the lead manga and I was used to reading right page then left page, the fact that the interview was laid out to be read left page then right page was confusing at first and I kept reading the wrong questions first. Thankfully, the interview pages all lead with questions at the top. Had I read an answer than had to hunt for the question being answered I probably wouldn't have finished reading it. The interview was fluff and I'm certain that you could guess a good 70% of the questions asked. There was an additional two-page section where American submitted questions were asked and answered. If you've ever heard a group of fans asking creators questions, you can infer the questions asked once again. Though light on substance, I feel that this Q&A was one of the most important parts of the magazine along with the extensive two pages of letters (not bad for a first issue). Viz knows it's audience and knows exactly what they have to do for them to make them feel involved enough to care. This is a good thing. A loyal audience that feels a sense of community will be more willing to spend money and keep the products thriving. I think that a lack of this almost built-in community will be something that may injure the forthcoming RAIJIN COMICS manga anthology at first. There are also a few snippets on anime series that are currently being shown on US TV that appeal to the same age group as the magazine. There is also video game and trading card game information and news as well. There is also toy information, convention photos, and a lot of small bits that cover the "otaku" (anime fan) experience. I feel that everything save the otaku specific info (such as con reports, etc.) to be a bit extraneous. There are a variety of resources for all of this info and the targeted demographic is very net savy and probably already knows where to go for what. While I know that it won't be cut, I hope that it doesn't expand from what it is currently. What I WOULD like to see is WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP-specific information. What's hot now, what's coming out in WSJ soon, what's wrapping up, plot lines, character art, the classic manga of WSJ etc. etc. etc. It is nearly impossible to find manga specific news, and with SJ, Viz has a way to push and promote something that only they have access to in the future (in all likelihood anyway, I'm hoping they were smart enough for "first look" or something similar). I'm amazed we didn't see this, but won't be surprised in the lease when we see it in the future. Another area I was puzzled by was in the advertising. Viz published ANIMERICA, the advert heavy otaku magazine. I'm shocked that 1) we didn't see more otaku specific ads and 2) we didn't see more mainstream ads. The few ads in SJ were for DBZ and YGO trading card games, Toys and anime. There was an ad for Cartoon Network's Adult Swim Saturday line-up which features Yu-Yu Hakusho, but that was it. The coveted back cover didn't feature any advertising at all, and was very similar to the front cover. Being aware that my 19.95 for the next 12 issues is not going to keep them in business, I was hoping that they'd have more advertisers lined up. I hope that the Otaku advertisers are taking a "wait and see" attitude instead of writing this off as yet another failed attempt to bring a manga anthology to America (see PULP, SMILE, MIXX, etc., etc., etc.). My subscription not only serves to get me a much lower cover price, but I also see it as investing in a product that I enjoy and most likely will in the future. I plan on doing the same thing with RAIJIN, and have already purchased a month's subscription (4 issue) for 9.95. My plan for RAIJIN is to buy a massive 174 dollar one year subscription (48 issues) with my tax return. I really want these to succeed and the only way something aiming for the mass market dollar WILL succeed is with subscribers to entice advertisers with huge circulation numbers in desired age brackets. If you are able to, I recommend you do the same for SHONEN JUMP. I understand that RAIJIN may be a bit much to just drop blindly for the one-month subscription, but if you break it down, it's 1,200 pages for the price of 4 Marvel Comics. This is a lot of magazine for 5 dollars. I'm certain that with the variety of stories on display here that you may feel cheated on one or two, but I hoping that like me, you felt rewarded by at least one. It's simply the best value in manga, and with your support, it may be the first successful attempt to snag the mainstream audience in a big way. (Eric
Phipps)
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