This was a pretty good week for comics. There wasn’t a lot published, but my store started selling off recent Marvel overstock at 10 for $10, so my pile ended up being pretty big.
Best Book of the Week:
Daytripper #2
by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá
This issue of Daytripper is very different from the previous. Where the first comic was a realistic depiction of the end of Brás de Oliva Domingos’s life, this issue is more fantastical. This time around, the focus is on a time when Brás is 21, and traveling around the country with his friend Jorge, visiting the quieter, more contemplative places in Brazil.
Brás meets a girl while swimming, and they tour the market, sleep together, and then arrange to meet at the festival for Iemanjá, a sea goddess. This issue is also about how people define themselves, and how your work is not who you are, a lesson that the 21-year old Brás, most likely traveling on his father’s money, has not had the occasion to learn yet.
Moon and Bá are working in the Latin American magical realist tradition, although they keep such influences subtle. I like the way each issue in this series is going to represent a different stage or moment in Brás’s life, while also providing increased insight into his character.
Of course, the best thing about this comic is the art. The brothers are outdoing themselves, and completing some stunningly beautiful work. Dave Stewart’s colours compliment the book perfectly.
Other Notable Books:
DMZ #49
Written by Brian Wood
Art by Riccardo Burchielli
It would seem that DC doesn’t want people to see the cover to this issue, which is a little strange. Yes, the cover does give away the end to the issue, but anyone who walks into any comic store will see that right away, before they read the comic, which means it’s just somebody’s idea of a clever marketing ploy. And it’s a shame, because John Paul Leon has drawn a terrific image.
Things really go off the rails this issue for our protagonists. Matty’s long-awaited reunion with Zee does not go well, while his attempts to escalate violence in the DMZ, in response to the beating he took last issue, has disastrous consequences that differ from the consequences he was looking for. As well, the army discovers the location of Parco’s bomb.
The end of this issue really changes things for this title, and I’m very curious to see where Wood is taking this book.
Written by David Tischman
Art by Phillip Bond and David Hahn
This was a very enjoyable series, and it ends quite nicely, with the various scams, schemes, and plots all being left out in the open. Having read the end, I am tempted to go back and start the whole series over again, as I’m sure there are plenty of hints that point towards the outcome.
The best thing about this issue is that Bond returns to full pencils. I liked Hahn’s work on the title, but Bond is a terrific artist and the reason why I started reading this book in the first place.
This will be great in trade form, and I urge anyone who likes conspiracy stories to pick it up.
The Unwritten #9
Written by Mike Carey
Art by Peter Gross
This is another very good issue of a very good title. This issue details Tom’s escape from the men who have invaded the prison to kill him, and reunites him with Lizzie Hexam and his flying cat. It’s becoming increasingly clear that Tom really is Tommy Taylor, although he is just about the only person that doesn’t see that.
The comic continues to integrate literary characters, with Roland making another, pivotal, appearance. This importance of fiction and fictional characters gets touched upon in a nice textpiece conversation between Carey and Gross, wherein they discuss the most pivotal books of their childhoods.
This is a pretty intelligent book, and I’m enjoying it a great deal.
Quick Takes:
Action Comics #885 – 
Enough already. We’ve established that General Lane is bad, and that he has unlimited resources for new powered or super-equipped characters to show up in every issue; let’s just get on with it.
Adventure Comics #6 – Okay, the story is more than a little silly, as Lex Luthor manipulates Superboy into doing a whole bunch of things for him. I don’t know why Connor cares so much about the mother of a girl he just met, and the whole thing comes off as slightly false. And there’s no Legion back-up this time around, which is very disappointing. Manapaul’s art is incredible though, so it’s not a complete loss.
Invincible Iron Man #22 – This is a standard ‘middle of a terrific arc’ story; it’s good, but not a stand-out. I don’t understand how The Ghost can’t find Stark, but it’s all good.
The Marvels Project #5 – This is picking up, especially as Captain America gets suited up, and has his first run in with The Angel. Brubaker’s taking the slow approach, and I’m sure this will read better in trade. I don’t understand why the Nazi spy who has fled his home has taken his unpacked bookcase with him….
Nation X #2 – I 
know this comic got some press for featuring Northstar’s boyfriend (in a pretty silly and forgettable story), but it’s because it has a Becky Cloonan story that I bought it. I love her work, and while her take on Gambit looks great, the story is a little bland, as she attempts to reconcile the fact that he is back on the team with the fact that he betrayed them a while back. The Jubilee story is okay, and the Martha Johansson versus Quentin Quire story makes me nostalgic for the Grant Morrison days.
R.E.B.E.L.S. #12 – It must be a lot of fun to write Vril Dox. The textured betrayals and hidden agendas make him a delight. This issue has a new artist – Geraldo Borges, who does a good job of keeping the art consistent with previous issues. There are plenty of good moments, from Despero’s severed head to Bounder actually doing something for once. Bedard is writing one of the best DC books on the stands.
Secret Six #17 – The Secret Six/Suicide Squad cross-over within a crossover continues, although it’s lacking the book’s usual ‘great moments to pages’ ratio. I did like seeing Bronze Tiger and Catman go at it – Turner was always one of the best parts of the Suicide Squad, and is totally under-utilized in the DCU.
S.W.O.R.D. #3 – I’ve been enjoying this comic quite a bit. Gyrich continues to detain all aliens on Earth, including Brand, while Beast chats with Unit, the mysterious robot, giving us a lot of backstory. Meanwhile Lockheed causes trouble on the station, and Death’s Head comes back. Gillen’s giving us a ton of story in each issue, and I’m getting used to Sanders’s weird way of drawing the Beast. This is one of Marvel’s hidden gems, reminding me a little of the more focused of Giffen and DeMatteis’ old JLI.
Comics I Would Have Bought if They Weren’t $4:
Dark X-Men #3
Farscape Dargo’s Quest #2
Punisher Max #3
Realm of Kings Imperial Guard #3
Shield #5
Set of the Week:
Mysterius the Unfathomable #1-6
Written by Jeff Parker
Art by Tom Fowler
When this series came out, starting last spring, I squarely ignored it. It got a lot of push at my comic store, but something about it caused it to never exactly catch my eye. It did get lots of positive press though, and I figured if I ever got the chance to grab it all in one go, either as a trade or as a set, I would. That chance came last week, and I’m quite thankful for it.
Mysterius is Zatarra and Zatanna done properly. It’s the story of an old magician – the real kind – who kind of bumbles his way through life, never getting too caught up in things, either his surroundings or the consequences of his actions. As the series opens, he is conducting a seance for a rich New York society type, except the seance goes horribly wrong, and the guy’s spirit gets left behind in Hell. It’s not all a loss, as Mysterius gets a new assistant, or Delfi, as they’re called, out of the bargain.
From there, the book diverges into a whirlwind tour of magic in Jeff Parker’s world. We get 
witches covens, celebrity endurance magicians, and enchanted children’s books. The writing of this comic is wildly inventive and funny, as Parker has people react to Mysterius in a variety of ways.
Fowler’s art was probably the main reason why I didn’t pick up the book in the first place, but it has grown on me quite a bit. At first, I was put off by the bulbous noses and generous paunches that abound in this comic, but Fowler’s aesthetic really grew on me. The Dr. Seuss knock-off scenes are fantastic.
Wildstorm should be commended for publishing this type of work – a book that is never going to be a top seller, but that garners critical acclaim and improves the overall intelligence of their back catalogue.
Bargain Comics:
Dark Avengers: Ares #2 &3 – This ended up being a great little series, focusing on Ares’s relationship with his other son. Lots of good lines, and nice art.
Daring Mystery Comics #1 – As much as I love Golden Age characters, a lot of modern stories set in their time are pretty dull, this being a perfect example. The Phantom Reporter is just not that compelling a character when not being written by JMS it seems.
Fantastic Four: ¡Isla de la Muerte! #1 – I bought this for Juan Doe’s artwork, which is incredibly lush and beautiful, but was surprised by what a handle Tom Beland has on the Fantastic Four, especially the relationship between Ben and Sue, which has hardly ever been explored. There’s some really nice character work here, even if the story does get a little too eco-preachy towards the end.
Hulk: Winter Guard #1 – This is a pretty random book. I think its interesting that the middle of the story is a reprint of a Peter David Hulk comic, and am amused that they tried (poorly) to integrate it into the story, but it’s hard to see why this book exists. It also makes me wonder if I should now not bother getting High Moon…
Mystic Comics #1 – I figured David Lapham writing and drawing the Golden Age Vision had to be good, but it was only okay. Sad….
Punisher Max X-Mas Special #1 – Aaron and Boschi are responsible for this ultra-violent story of a mob boss whose wife is delivering a baby on Christmas Eve, drawing the attention of rival mob folk and the Punisher. The parallels to the birth of Christ are kind of obvious – there’s a manger scene – but it’s a cool comic.
Rampaging Wolverine #1 – Most of this black and white anthology is completely negligible, but it has Ted McKeever drawing Wolverine. That’s pretty cool, even if he is just fighting apes. I like Christopher Yost’s story too.
Sgt. Fury & His Howling Commandos #1 – I have no idea why Marvel would decide to publish such a random book, but it has art by John Paul Leon, so of course it’s great. The story is decent enough – it’s kind of the standard thing.
Wolverine: Saudade #1 – This is a very cool French comic from a few years ago, translated into English. Logan is in Brazil on vacation, where he runs into a couple mutants – one is a favela kid, the other a twisted faith healer. I like seeing such a familiar character being handled with a different sensibility – it’s a ‘mature readers’ book, making it seem a little more realistic. I’d like to see more stuff like this, it’s too bad Marvel rarely publishes any.
The Week’s Graphic Novels:
Dead West
Written by Rick Spears
Art by Rob G
I’ve looked forward to reading this graphic novel for quite some time, especially after reading the pair’s Repo and Teenagers From Mars, both of which are frenetic and exciting comics. This came as more of a disappointment, I think, because of my level of expectation. I’m not saying it’s a bad comic, just that the individual elements do not coalesce into a particularly good comic.
The set-up is a cool one. The survivor of an American massacre of an Aboriginal tribe brings his people back as zombies to attack the town that was built on their ancestral land in ‘The Old West’. To my knowledge, this was the first Western zombie comic.
For zombie comics to work though, you have to care about the people that are trying to survive, and that’s where this book falls down. My sympathy was more with the Aboriginals than any other character in the book. I felt that the survivor was the most developed character here. The others were either slapped together stereotypes (the likable whore, the town sheriff, the Clint Eastwood/Jonah Hex figure) or were complete ciphers (the military men, the guy being chased by Jonah Hexwood). It was very difficult to care about anything that was happening.
Also confusing matters was G’s artwork. While some pages look fantastic, often the action is confusing, and it was hard to tell one character from another. The creative pair get marks for trying, but this whole book came off as kind of amateurish. I much preferred Teenagers From Mars.
The Placebo Man
by Tomer Hanuka
This trade collects nine short pieces by Israeli comics artist Tomer Hanuka. Each of these stories are experimental in nature, often incorporating stream of consciousness, or dream imagery. Other stories jump around in time, often unexpectedly.
Hanuka’s characters are frequently isolated and unhappy, revisiting past mistakes or poor decisions. My favorite story is about Johnny Weissmuller, the Olympic athlete and Tarzan actor, in his last days.
Hanuka’s pencil drawings remind me of Dave McKean’s work on Cages (which I really should re-read one of these days); his characters are angular and rough-hewn, and their surroundings are often sparse. It looks nothing like his magazine work for publications like the New Yorker.
This is a difficult, but interesting piece of work.
Tonoharu
by Lars Martinson
I didn’t know what to expect with this book, as it appeared to be part of the autobiographical stream of indie comics that often doesn’t appeal much to me, but at the same time, it’s about teaching in Japan, something I’ve always felt tempted to try.
Daniel Wells is a young American who has taken a job as an Assistant English Teacher (AET) in a small town in rural Japan. He’s just about the only foreigner around, excepting some eccentric Europeans who keep to themselves and an American girl half an hour away who has little to no interest in spending time with him. The book is an examination of his isolation and boredom, punctuated with examples of Japan’s extreme levels of cultural difference from North America.
The book is quite wry in its humour. I like the way in which Martinson builds up his portraits of Daniel’s teaching colleagues – they never quite become characters in the full sense of the word, and we are left with only impressions of them, but they each stand out.
The book, with its four panel grid, is a quick read, which is disappointing, as I found I was just beginning to become invested in it when it ended. I realize this is only the first part, but I was hoping for a little more. I do like Martinson’s art style, and his depiction of the Americans worrying about their introductory lessons rang quite true for someone who has worked with many student- and beginning teachers.
Album of the Week:
