Stuck Rubber Baby

Writer and Artist: Howard Cruse

Publisher: Vertigo Comics

Stuck Rubber Baby is a fiction that reads like an autobiography. Toland is a young closeted man growing up in the 1960s American South. He makes friends with a group of liberal folk and finds himself socialising in the black and LGBT clubs of his town. He is drawn into the local civil rights movement and is forced to confront the truth of his sexuality, whilst racist and homophobic attacks are regular occurrences.

The Arrival

Artist and writer: Shaun Tan
Publisher: Lothian Books

A comic without words, The Arrival's art is further towards the fine art end of the spectrum than the cartooning end and it makes a beguiling story.

A man packs his suitcase, says goodbye to his family, and sails away to a new country. The alphabet is strange, the wildlife is creepy, and the everyday systems are near incomprehensible. Our man has to find lodgings, a job and friends.

Comics about Immigrants

A comics site called Women Write About Comics (WWAC) has recently written about five comics on the theme of immigration.

It's quite a political post as it's written with the UK General Election (7th May) in mind, but don't be put off  by that as the suggestions given are really rather good.  One of them is Anya's Ghost that we reviewed here, another is the current Ms Marvel series, published by Marvel Comics, which is excellent.  There are also webcomics listed.

I highly recommend you check out the WWAC site as well as the above linked article.

Marvel: Civil War

Writer: Mark Millar
Penciller: Steve McNiven
Inker: Dexter Vines
Colourist: Morry Hollowell
Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos
Publisher: Marvel

What's it about?
A group of young heroes accidentally kill themselves and 600 civilians. This alarms the government who introduce the Superhuman Registration Act - everyone with powers must register with the government and become paid operatives of S.H.I.E.L.D.  If you don't comply, you'll be arrested and charged with treason.

This Act splits the heroes. Iron Man, Spider-Man, Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, She-Hulk and others are in support of the Act.  Most of the X-Men, Captain America, Nick Fury and others oppose it.  As the supporters are hired to bring in those that don't comply, the opposing faction go underground.

The book builds on and references other key events in the Marvel universe but you don't need to know about these to read it.  The other events are used to build the case for the Act and explore the moral quandary that the Marvel universe finds itself in.   The supporters believe registration is necessary to ensure new heroes are adequately trained and to ensure a measure of accountability.  The opposers believe that heroes shouldn't be beholden to government (what if government fucks up?) and that registration puts their loved ones at risk. 

An unusual entry into our review system..

As you probably know, we usually review trades of published comics or webcomics as a whole series, but today we shall make an exception. I recently discovered a short strip giving advice to a 12 year old on how to deal with sexual harassment, or perverts, as the strip puts it. It’s great! Here is the first part of it:

Read the whole entry here.

It’s part of the Sneaky VFX comic strip you can find the rest of the their webcomic here.  I understand that this is a variation from their usual strips, but based on this entry I heartily recommend you check it out (and forward the link to all teenage girls)!

Now, who says comics can’t tackle serious issues effectively?

Ex Machina: The First Hundred Days

Writer: Brian K. Vaughan
Artist: Tony Harris
Inks: Tom Feister

Colors: JD Mettler
Publisher: Wildstorm Comics

What’s it about?
Have you ever wondered how the life of a superhero would look in real life?
What would he try to accomplish? Would fighting crime with super powers be actually enough?
What kind of repercussions would such a man have?
If we can consider the sort of popularity they'd gain, like a movie star, what if they were to use this fame to try to enter politics where such men could actually end up making a difference on a larger scale?

That is probably what Brian K. Vaughan had in mind when he decided to work on Ex Machina.  Ex Machina is the tale of Mitchell Hundred, the superhero known as The Great Machine in a world where only this man became a superhero...during the turn of the century in the early 2000s. It features a very political background over which Mitchell's story is told via flashbacks and even some flashforwards, alongside the present day events following his establishment as Mayor of New York City.

A dramatic story with a political aspect, mixed with some of what you would expect from superheroics, some shenanigans with villains and a mysterious origin story.  It may take place in a sort of alternate reality, but it feels that more real because of it.

DMZ: On the Ground

written by Brian Wood
art by Riccardo Burchielli and Brian Wood
colours by Jeromy Cox

What's It About?
A second American Civil War has broken out, anti-establishment militias banding together in the American heartlands to form the Free States while the US government is busy fighting foreign wars. US forces have managed to halt the Free States' advance in New York. The US holds Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island while the Free States hold everything inland of New Jersey. In the middle is Manhattan Island, a no man's land, a warzone known to the world as the DMZ.

Matty Roth is a young photo-journalist interning with Liberty News (“News for America and Americans!”) attached to an award-winning journalist being flown into the DMZ. Caught in an ambush the news team and its military escort are slaughtered, leaving only Matty alive. With only a press pass for protection Matty finds himself the only embedded journalist in the centre of the warzone. Either it'll make his career or kill him.

Calvin & Hobbes

Writer and Artist: Bill Watterson
Publisher:  Sphere

What’s it about?

Mostly, it’s about six year old Calvin and his overactive imagination.  His best friend is a stuffed Tiger named Hobbes, with whom he invents numerous characters and stories, ranging from Spaceman Spiff, Captain Stupendous, tyrannosaurs (usually based on his mother), alien invasions (usually based on both parents), and far far more.

The perils of Calvin’s life can be summarised thus:

School, bathtime, Rosalyn the babysitter, school photos, camping trips, his long suffering neighbour neighbour Susie and his very attentive parents.

Animal Man: Animal Man, Origin of the Species, Deus Ex Machina

Writer: Grant Morrison
Penciller: Chas Truog (vol 1, 2, 3), Tom Grummett (vol 1, 2), Paris Cullens (vol 3)
Inker: Doug Hazelwood (vol 1, 2, 3), Mark McKenna (vol 2 ), Steve Montano (vol 2, 3), Mark Farmer (vol 3),
Letterer: John Constanza (vol 1, 2, 3), Janice Chiang (vol 2)
Colourist: Tatjana Wood, (vol 1, 2, 3), Helen Vesik (vol 2)
Covers: Brian Bolland
Publisher: DC Comics

What’s it about?

These 3 trades collect 26 monthly issuers of the 1980s Animal Man comic, written by Grant Morrison.  It concerns Buddy Baker, a man who gradually becomes aware of his existence as a fictional character within a comic book.

Morrison tends to write grand, complex meta-narratives and this book, produced early in his career, is no exception.  The interest in these volumes lies in seeing how Buddy comes to realise his fictionality, understanding the effect this has on him looking at our roles as consumers of his story.

(Click each picture to get a bigger version)

Maggie the Mechanic. A Love and Rockets book

written and drawn by Jaime Hernandez

What’s It About?
The thing about siblings is you love them but at the same time you need space from them. When Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez decided to start a comicbook together they neatly solved this problem by taking half the book each. In his half Gilbert created the village of Palomar (reviewed here) and in his half Jaime created Las Locas.

The Locas are a largely female, largely Mexican-American cast living around the early-80s LA punk scene. Jaime Hernandez tried to inject some reality into communities and peoples he had too often seen portrayed in the media only through stereotype and cliché: the punk scene, homosexual relationships, bisexuality and his own Mexican-American background. Added to this realism was a touch of science-fiction and so Maggie the Mechanic, Mexican-American bisexual punkette, also ends up travelling the world fixing up spaceships and armies of robots, riding a hover-scooter and teaming up with professional wrestler/revolutionary agitator Rena Titanon between adventures at home with a large, varied and endearing cast of friends.


Now Fantagraphics are publishing a series of collections bringing together the complete canon of Las Locas stories in strict chronological order of publication, starting with Maggie The Mechanic.

Transmetropolitan volume 1: Back on the street

Writer: Warren Ellis
Penciller: Darick Robertson
Inks: Keith Aiken, Jerome K.Moore, Ray Kryssing, Dick Giordano
Colour and separations: Nathan Eyring
Letters: Clem Robins
Publisher: Vertigo

What's it about?
Welcome to the future.  Here we have makers and base blocks to create anything you require, designer drugs that have no adverse side effects, newsfeeds a thousand times more pervasive than twitter, facebook or linkedin, and genome treatments to give you lizard skin or eagle feathers for a month.

This is no utopia of peace, sun and dreams.  There's also machines high on hallucinogens and Ebola cola to rot your face and quench your thirst.  You can measure the wealth of a neighbourhood by the absence of litter - rich folks have makers, poor folks have garbage scavengers, really poor folks have litter.

In short, it's just like today, minus the pretence of respectability and with a lot more tech.

Laika

Writer and artist: Nick Abadzis
Publisher: First Second
 
What's it about?
This is the story of the Russian fight to win the space race and the little dog they sent into orbit, Laika.  All events are centred around Laika, but it is not told from the perspective of Laika, or Kudryavka as she is named by various carers.  It's part fiction, part fact.

The story is narrated chiefly by three people, Korolev, Chief Designer of the space rockets, Yelena, dog handler for the programme, and fictionalised families that have cared for Kudryavka in her early years.

By using these different viewpoints Abadzis walks us through many aspects of Soviet life and we bear witness to the diffiuclties and contradictions facing everyday people, as well as the joys.  We learn about the cruelty of the ruling party, the ambition of your average Soviet citizen, the transition from Stalin's regime to Khruschev's, and we get an inkling of the effect that life in the gulags had on those poor souls sent there.

Superman: Red Son

 

Writer: Mark Millar

Penciller: Dave Johnson and Killian Plunkett

Inker: Andrew Robinson and Walden Wong

Colourist: Paul Mounts

Letters: Ken Lopez

Publisher: DC Comics

Apologies for the delay in posting.  It turns out that accurately predicting the future is not my forte.  That said, enjoy the review.

What's it about?

This is one of DC's Elseworld's titles.  The term Elseworlds refers to books where the characters are "taken from their usual settings and put into strange times and places, some that have existed, and others that can't, couldn't or shouldn't exist".  In this story Superman's rocket from Krypton lands on a Ukrainian Collective farm in the Soviet Union, not a Kansas farm in America.  Subsequently he is brought up as a faithful Communist instead of the more familiar American icon.

His 'S' shield is substituted for a sickle, the Cold War takes a sharp new turn and America becomes the last bastion of capitalism.  Lois Lane never marries Superman and Lex Luthor becomes an American hero.

Green Lantern/Green Arrow volume one

Writer: Dennis O’Neil
Pencils: Neal Adams
Inks: Neal Adams, Dick Giordano, Frank Giacoia, Dan Adkins and Berni Wrightson
Colours: Cory Adams and Jack Adler
Publisher: DC Comics

What’s It About?
Hal Jordan is the Green Lantern: a sort of outer space policeman dedicated to enforcing law and order on Earth and in surrounding space with a ring that can create any construct he can imagine. Oliver Queen is Green Arrow: once rich, now poor, he fights on the streets for the underdog armed only with his bow and arrow and a ready wit.

Forced to question his faith in authority, Hal begins a journey to discover the “real” spirit of America with Ollie as his guide. Accompanied by one of Hal’s superior officers, the immortal Guardian, they set off in a battered pick-up truck to cross the country and reconnect Hal with his own species after so long out in space.

Incognegro

Incognegro

Writer: Mat Johnson
Artist: Warren Pleece
Publisher: Vertigo

What’s It About?
It’s the early twentieth century and Zane Pinchback is a reporter for the New Holland Herald, an African-American newspaper operating out of New York. Born with skin pale enough to pass as white, he works undercover to infiltrate lynchings and under the pen name Incognegro he works to expose the murderers who commit them.

His brother, his significantly darker-skinned brother, has been accused of murder. The murder of a white woman and in Mississippi, no less. The evidence is slight but the mob is ready and Zane knows its only a matter of time.