With the regular reviewers on hiatus for the moment, as a sort of sequel to my last Micro Reviews (if you checked any of those out, I’d love to know), here’s a mini round up of what I’ve been reading over the last six months with a trio of offerings from those who illustrate their own stories.
Firstly,
Sweet Tooth by Jeff Lemire, published by Vertigo. Lemire’s Essex County was my favourite comic of last year, so I was keen to look at his other stuff, and this is rather good fun.
Post apocalypse fans ought to like this one. Set after an unexplained plague has rapidly decimated humanity, there are only a handful of survivors. Survival is a bit of a slog, the usual barbaric tribes hoard all the guns, and even the survivors still succumb to the illness. However, the plague has also coincided with the birth of bizarre human/animal hybrid children, who seem to be immune.
Gus, the central character, is a boy with antlers. Things start of as he lives in the woods in the middle of nowhere with his delusional, dying father. Unfortunately, dad passes away, and a naïve Gus has to venture out into the hostile world for the first time, where he meets a violent, ambiguous guide Jeppard.
There are three volumes (it’s also an ongoing monthly)
Out of the Deep Woods, In Captivity and Animal Armies. So far it’s been tightly plotted, with some nice twists, and quite genuinely shocking in places. As with Essex County, friendship is a central theme of the book with them being formed and betrayed as we go along.
The art style is rough and dirty, suiting the hellish new world Gus must find his way though. A haunting read, and worth checking out.
Pinocchio by French artist, Winshluss and published by Knockabout Comics is no Disney adaptation. Pinocchio is designed by Gepetto as a robotic super soldier, and Jiminy Cockroach is a rather loathsome creature who takes up residence in the robot boy’s brain. A very unfortunate accident with Mrs G sets Pinocchio of to wander around the world and his creator to find him. Unfortunately, pretty much everyone Pinocchio meets takes advantage of him.
I picked this up after flipping through a few pages, and this is the work of a pretty creative individual. The pages are rammed with detail, and there are a wealth of loathsome characters and plotlines. It’s hard to see how the many plot lines tie to the main story, but they do, and there is a lot of set up and pay off of the stories. There is a beautiful mix of sketchy black and white thumbnails, to full page painted panels.
Also, for a book that is just short of 200 pages, there is barely any dialogue. Even more reason to study the superb artwork. Probably the reason it took me a few days to finish.
Onto lighter matter with
Incredible Change-Bots and erm,
Incredible Change-Bots Two by Jeffery Brown, published by Top Shelf. This is the Transformers revival to check out, and an affectionate tribute and parody of the 80’s cartoon. On the distant planet of Electronocybercuircuitron the Awesomebots and Fantasticons are locked in an age old conflict over some trivial detail or another. They come to Earth where they carry on involving humans in the conflict.
That’s about it for plot, but there’s lots of silly gags, nods to the comics and cartoons of the day and a nice nostalgic feel about the whole thing. The robots look rather like the kind of robots my friends and I drew when we were all growing up. It can’t help but raise a smile.
Anyway, I’ll probably be back to ramble a bit more when
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1969 finally hits the shelves in a few weeks time ….
*For those not familiar with the music of The Divine Comedy:
http://youtu.be/sB--qzE4JhE
