I have a long standing theory about television sitcoms, and serialized entertainment in general: building an environment that people want to come back to depends less on creating and casting your lead successfully than it does on creating and casting his supporting ensemble successfully.

Mark Dos Santos, the illustrator of SCHOOL GIRLS who is presenting his first writing efforts here, has succeeded in executing my theory.

AIR SPACE is a comedic romp through the galaxy, following the exploits of smuggler Captain Quinn and his crew: Mel, the sexy, sassy female engineer, Brando, the attractive actor who can’t even get cast as a human; and his sister, Heidi, who seems to have a blue carrot for a head, even though Brando is human.

Whatever. Don’t dwell on the details. It’s not Shakespeare. Dwell instead on the cameo by Duck Dodgers in the 24 ½th century.

The storyline is pretty familiar to any sci-fi fan: smuggler being hired to deliver a mysterious cargo that isn’t what it appears to be. This is one of those stories that’s not taking you on an unfamiliar journey, but its taking some side roads that you haven’t seen before. Dos Santos is gleefully flexing all his creative muscles for the first time here, and its fun to watch. His art remains strong, with clear panel progression, strong composition, and a manga-influenced style that’s fun to look at. He’s a Kubert school graduate, so you wouldn’t expect anything less.

AIR SPACE gave me good entertainment for my hard-earned dollars. And really, what the hell else are you looking for, anyway?

(Dave Potter)

* * *

FORCE MAJEURE: PRAIRIE BAY #1
Michael Tierney, Armando Gil
Little Rocket Productions
Force Majeure is a very pretty book. It has a very sturdy full-color cover, contains beautifully rendered art, and is based around a fairly interesting premise. I don’t know anything about the Wild Stars series this story is an off-shoot from, but they’ve piqued my interest, which isn’t half bad when one considers I started reading this with no expectations whatsoever. I picked this up on a lark, and really enjoyed myself. That’s about as good as you can get.

The story revolves a Mars colony and the difficulties they endure when the planet’s tectonic plates start shifting. The opening fault lines reveal an obelisk, a dead Greek soldier, and a trident purported to belong to Poseidon. Did ancient Greeks colonize Mars? Was this the work of aliens? Perhaps the ancient Greek gods were aliens. This will all be answered in forthcoming issues.

The story is very engaging with interesting characters and crackling sci-fi movie dialogue that’s better than the crap I heard while watching Mission to Mars. Michael Tierney has done everything he’s supposed to with a first issue, although I hope he cuts loose in later installments. Judging by the final panel, I have a good feeling he will.

Armando Gil’s art reminds me a bit of John Severin’s Cracked magazine work. The very cartoony facial expressions made the dialogue even better and his great attention to even the smallest detail is remarkable. I’d actually picked up the comic for his artwork, and he made some of the tedious tech-jargon scenes all the more bearable. Tierney and Gil work very well together and as long as he’s drawing the next installments, I’ll check them out.

I liken this comic to a television pilot. Pilots can go in one of three ways: They’re brilliant right off the bat, they fall completely on their faces, or they intrigue you enough to come back while they work out the kinks. Force Majeure is from the third category. There’s a lot of good things here, and I’ll definitely give #2 a try.

(Jeff Chon)

* * *

INFINITE KUNG-FU #2
Kagan Mcleod

I can’t say enough wonderful things about this book. It’s just a fantastic, distinctive piece of work that gets me excited about buying comics, and you get more for this $3.00 than you get from most $2.95 books. Trust me on this one: that extra nickel is money well-spent.

For the uninitiated, this comic revolves around a soldier-turned-monk wandering a dystopian wasteland fighting zombies and searching for one of the Eight Immortals, so that he can return his master’s soul to his body. Just makes you love comics, doesn’t it?

In last issue’s preview of this one, Mcleod claims we’ll get funky, and for God’s sake, we get funky. We meet Moog Joogular, a Sho-Nuff meets Bootsy Collins kung fu master who can pull off his extremities and beat you with them. I know, I know, but it actually works. The scene where he launches his head at an unwitting zombie is worth the price of admission alone.

Kagan Mcleod’s graphically intense work is what drawing funnybooks is all about. His style reminds me of graphitti artwork, and I had this really stupid comic reviewer conceit about how he’s tagging the urine-stained walls of comicdom with his wild imagination, but I’m not going to subject you to it…Um, too late. Anyway, it’s a really pretty book.

All this and he figured out another inventive way to review kung fu movies. One of the many bonuses of this comic is the reviews and the Kung Fu Criminals game on the last page. It’s scary to know that there’s someone out there who’s seen more kung fu flicks than I have (or that someone else has seen Ninja Champion). This isn’t just a comic, it’s a journey into the wonderful subculture of badly dubbed chop-socky cinema. Mcleod is out to educate the unwashed Charlie’s Angels/Brotherhood of the Wolf masses on what makes martial arts action so great and he succeeds beautifully.

This is one kicktacular mind*^&% of a comic and I urge you to check it out.

(Jeff Chon)

* * *

TRUE STORY SWEAR TO GOD #1 & 2
Tom Beland
Clib’s Boy Comics

I dare you not to like Tom Beland.

Beland is the writer and artist behind the online strip True Story Swear To God, which is occasionally collected and sold as a ‘Zine. He has recently undertaken his first full-length comic series, also under the name True Story Swear To God, telling the story of meeting his wife Lili, a journalist from Puerto Rico, by chance while visiting Disney World. It’s a simple story, nothing too far removed from your average romantic comedy.

The key to romantic comedy is strong characters, though, and I tell you this: you will like Tom Beland. You will root for Tom Beland. Even though you know he gets the girl and lives happily ever after, you will worry about him not getting her, you will feel bad when he is separated from her and you will cheer when things work out, as of course they will.

The first issue in the series, Magic, tells of the chance meeting between Beland and his future wife Lili. It takes place almost entirely over the course of the one day they spent together before they both left for home-Beland to California and Lili to Puerto Rico, seemingly never to see one another again. The second issue, Reunion, is about their separate lives, and how they managed to foster a romance thousands of miles apart.

Magic is a nice, well-drawn book. Beland draws like the anti-Andi Watson-his cartooning style is seemingly a varied collection of harmless curved lines that convey an entirely different feel than Watson’s drawings which are all sharp-cornered and serious-yet manages, like Watson, to achieve a great range of emotion and expression through only a few seemingly simple lines.

For all its charm, though, Magic feels a little sappy in places. It’s a fun book with some great moments, but Beland really hits the ground running with Reunion. Seeing Tom and Lili in their respective environments gives the reader a great feel for them as individual characters as opposed to two lovebirds and allows for more development for both of them.

Working with a greater number of characters, including Beland’s chatty co-workers, his hot-tempered brother and Lili’s prying family, allows Beland more freedom to showcase his sharp sense of humor. Beland’s jokes focus on the minor irritations and tiny triumphs of everyday life. It’s what your local newspaper would run on its comics pages if your local newspaper didn’t suck.

True Story Swear To God is a wonderful series too rare in comics and elsewhere. It’s a romantic comedy that seamlessly blends equal parts romance and comedy, equally accessible to men and women alike. It’s surprising without being untrue, funny without straining for laughs and identifiable while remaining unique.

And, besides, how can you not like Tom Beland?

(Bryan Miller)

* * *

2000AD #1291
John Wagner, Kev Walker and Tom Frame (JUDGE DREDD-Sin City)
Dan Abnett, Mark Pingriff, Angus Mackie and Ellie De Ville (SINISTER DEXTER-Croak)
Mike Carey, Andy Clarke, Chris Blythe and Annie Parkhouse (13)
Simon Spurrier, Steve Roberts, Richard Elson and Ellie De Ville (BEC & KAWL-And the Mystical Mentalist Menace!)
John Wagner, Frazer Irving and Tom Frame (JUDGE DREDD-My Name is Death)
Rebellion

2000AD is a title capable of astounding variation. Over it’s twenty five year period it’s produced some of the finest comics I’ve ever read (DR AND QUINCH, SKIZZ, the first series of BAD COMPANY, MEDIVAC 318) as well as some of the worst (URBAN STRIKE, JUDGE DREDD-NECROPOLIS). Despite these variations in quality it sails on and every now and again, I check in with it.

This time, I’ve been pleasantly surprised.

The two JUDGE DREDD stories are perfect examples of two of the standard approaches to Dredd as a character. He’s at his least interesting, to me at least, when used as a cheap means of satire and thankfully neither of these stories go down that route. Instead, we get an actual Cop story and a piece of horror. They work too, albeit to varying degrees.

The cop story, “Sin City” is the more successful. Following Dredd and a team of judges aboard what amounts to a floating version of Las Vegas, it’s rapidly turning into a large scale story that’s both plot and character heavy. As is almost always the
way, Dredd works best as a lens to view other characters through and that’s what we get here, with the personal difficulties of his team being brought into sharp relief by his own absence of feeling. A tightly plotted, interesting cop story, “Sin City” is
one of the best pieces of DREDD I’ve read in years.

“My Name is Death” is less successful, if nothing else due to the law of diminishing returns. Following yet another return by Judge Death, it’s competently handled and beautifully drawn by Frazer Irving but accomplishes absolutely nothing the character hasn’t done before. Death is the embodiment of death, believes all life is a crime and…that’s basically it.

It’s a story designed like a stack of dominos and one which, at this stage at least, seems to hold no surprises.

The other material presented here again demonstrates 2000AD’s strengths and failings. Abnett’s SINISTER DEXTER has at times seemed like nothing more but warmed over cyberpunk so it’s a pleasant surprise to see “Croak” play out very
differently. As much a western as anything else, it provides the characters with much needed background and actually left me wanting to get the next issues to
find out what happens. That’s a rarity with SINISTER DEXTER and hopefully this is a sign of things to come for the series.

“13″ is the star of the show however. Carey knows how to script for instalments this small and it works superbly well, barrelling along at breakneck speed without ever losing the reader. Following reluctant psychic Joe Durant as he fends off attacks from creatures with skin and no bone, demonic policeman and a doctor with a chainsaw. Self-aware without ever being self-indulgent, this bodes very well for his
upcoming HELLBLAZER run.

Finally, BEC AND KAWL is the weakest story here. Spurrier’s script seems uncertain of which way to turn, mixing comedy with horror and a bucketload of pop culture references to little effect. It works so hard on being a child of the SPACED/GENERATION X school of thought that the reader finds themselves not
caring about the characters or plot.

Overall though, this is an unusually strong lineup. Three of the five strips are well worth your time whilst the other two, frankly, aren’t. If those sound like good odds, then give this a try.

(Alasdair Stuart)

* * *

WAY OF THE RAT #1
Chuck Dixon/Jeff Johnson/Tom Ryder/Chris Garcia
Crossgen Comics

If the first page doesn’t get you then nothing will. The first page of this first issue is an image of sheer pop lunacy; the main character suspended beneath a huge, dragon-shaped kite/glider.

Everything you need to know is in that image. This isn’t remotely serious, isn’t remotely plausible but instead is firmly in MONKEY! Country, all insanely powerful kung fu, incompetent henchmen and intricately structured plots. In short, this is high adventure country and when he’s on form, few people do this better than Chuck Dixon.

Early signs are good as well. This first issue does a good job of setting up both plot and characters and rattles along at breakneck speed. There’s a tremendous energy to both it’s main character, a cheerfully incompetent thief and the plot that carries
it through some of the weaker moments and should make this a fun ride a few issues down the line.

The basic idea is simple: A thief steals something he shouldn’t and the consequences power the story. It’s a simple premise but one which Dixon handles
extremely well, especially the contractually obliged “creative kung fu” fight scene.

Indeed, it’s in the fight scenes that WAY OF THE RAT really shines. There’s a real sense of motion to them, panels flowing one into the other with a grace that does a good job of conveying the grace of the fighters. Portraying martial arts realistically in comic form has been notoriously difficult for years, but Johnson and co. do a fantastic job here and are to be applauded for it.

Oh and there’s a fantastic and extremely sarcastic talking monkey.

If I have a criticism though, it’s this. WAY OF THE RAT follows the current trend at CROSSGEN by blatantly being written with an eye to the inevitable collection. Personally, I have no problem with this but I can see it scaring off potential readers further down the line. Having said that, CROSSGEN’s ongoing project to make their comics as available as humanly possible (Comics on the Web, the FORGE and EDGE
compendia etc) may well balance this out.

All in all then, this is pure bubblegum comics. It’s unapologetically silly, tremendously enthusiastic and a fun way to blow five minutes of your life. If
you’re looking for intellectual stimulation, don’t bother. If you’re looking for fun, check this out.

(Alasdair Stuart)

If Ariel Schrag were a chocolate bunny, I would bite her head off. I’d run around the backyard, whooping and hollering, her little decapitated chocolate bunny body getting lumpy and misshapen in my pocket. Oh the adventures we’d have!

I mean that in the best, most innocent way possible.

Before Potential, I’d become a little burned out on auto-bio comics, I think. There was too much self-deprecating post-ironic loveable loser stuff passing itself off as panicked faux-suicide notes to a cold and uncaring world for my tastes. Jerking off and being an asshole to your girlfriend, being sad and wistful, but full of a vital, inner light that if only people could SEE! O, tragic life! Silly sullen kid stuff like that all starts to bleed together after awhile. It’s not a genre that holds my interest as much as it once did, I guess.

Why are we so obsessed by saying “no”? We (and by “we” I mean ‘me’, but I need solidarity right now) all allow the terrible Napoleons of our nature take us over and make shitty decisions and rob our lives of new, exciting experiences. If one has, say, bad sex, does one refuse sex forever? No. We know that sex can and will be good again. Even bad adventures are adventures. I think we should all say yes and allow the potential (pardon the pun) of everything to wash over us and later we can decide what bits were worthwhile. A huge comic written and drawn in balls-out savant style by a, what, 17 or 18 year old girl,, documenting every aspect of her life for an entire year? Not for me, I said. Oh, jackass me.

I don’t know why I was resistant. One day at the comic shop, I forced that little Napoleon back onto his Elba Island.

Around the time SAVANT got off the ground, I picked up Ariel Schrag’s Potential. I’d heard about her and her work for a while but hadn’t ever gotten off my ass to check her out. A phone call to Deke finally sold me on it; he’s always been about six months ahead of my own buying curve and anything he recommends is usually tits, so I bit, the way one would chomp gleefully at the head of a chocolate bunny.

The format of the book is odd. Good odd. Big (224 pages), thick (like, um, an inch), and blue (azure, or cerulean, perhaps), Potential looks like a collection of daily and Sunday comic strips, a Bizarro-Dilbert book. It’s a substantial object, that’s for sure. You could brain a guy with the spine if you had to. I don’t know why you would want to. But you could.

If I had to guess-and I’ve done absolutely no research into this because I’m amused by my own dumbass conjecture at this point-I’d say Ms. Chocobunny did this comic on standard 8/12 x 11 typing paper (as that’s the actual size of the collection) which is so charmingly analogue it makes me love it all the more.

The book is a journal/autobio recreation of Ariel’s time as a junior in high school, worked on and completed while a senior in 1997-1998 and the year following. As she tells the reader on the first page, “Junior year, and that means business. Times have been fun, I know it, but from here on out we’re talkin’: A’s to plow for; virginities to lose; proms to attend; we’re talkin’ potential.” The axiom of the entire work is, as the title and first page tells us, potential itself. Ariel’s mind reels at the possibilities of life are making themselves known for the first time. Adult life begins, sex and love and drunks and drugs and college and beyond, the second-hand on your watch sounds like a starter pistol, every thought and feeling magnified beyond endurance, and we ping-pong through it all feeling everything our intrepid narrator feels.

With her ever-present Biology textbook, Ariel navigates the choppy waters of her teenage wasteland fighting the ever-present “drain” and completely-insane “clothes imbalance” (just read it, it all makes sense. Um. Okay, no it doesn’t make sense. But read it anyway.). Embracing her inner dyke, her parents’ complete meltdown and divorce, boys and girls, the heartache of a crush that isn’t crushed back, Potential recounts Ariel Schrag’s year of ups and downs with a clarity both startling and astonishing. Her writing betrays maturity beyond her years with its incisiveness and honesty. As embarrassing and uncomfortable as the events she relate must be, Ariel doesn’t flinch or gussy up her life. Reproductions of notes and journal entries are on hand, from mundane party-planning to a he said-she said diary from the awkward and strange night Ariel lost her virginity.

The whole book is awkward and strange and beautiful.

Her artwork might seem crude to your inner Napoleon. However, there’s something perfect about her imagery and the way it syncs with her writing. Cartoony and vibrant, Ariel’s style shifts back and forth before finally settling on one main style; she intersperses the work with moments (dream sequences or memories, mostly) of weirdly-realistic drawings that almost look like ink or graphite washes, loosing the cartoon style with imagery that show an eye for gesture and expression that may surprise.

I can’t wait to see how brilliant she is several years from now.

Combined with the physicality of the book itself, the aforementioned 8 1/2 x 11 page size, Potential, as a package, feels authentic, a work with a pulse and life all its own. The only thing missing is being able to feel the back of the pages to run your fingers over the pressure marks made. That, and the whole work being presented in a three-ring binder, maybe. With stickers. That would be rad.

I’m sure this will sound not only ageist but sexist as well, but I don’t mean it to: The idea that there is/was a 17 year old girl making comics this good (while actually doing and living all the things she writes about– paragon of time management, this girl!) knocks me on my ass.

Every single thing I’ve ever hoped something like SAVANT could accomplish was done before we even started by a 17 year-old girl whose life was, and is, bursting with potential.

BY MATT FRACTION