Were Money No Object on May 18 Featuring Adventures Of Dr. McNinja, Shadoweyes, And More!

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The Books I Want to Buy:

Adventures of Dr. McNinja Vol. 1 – Night Powers

by Chris Hastings, Benito Cereno, and Les McClaine; Dark Horse, $19.99

I tried to get a look at this book at TCAF the other week-end, but there was a small crowd in front of Chris Hastings table, which made it impossible.  Dr. McNinja is a webcomic that is being collected by Dark Horse, much as they have done with Achewood and Wondermark, among other titles.  I hate reading webcomics on the computer, so I don’t know too much about this comic, other than that it looks like it’s going to be a fun read.

Dark Horse has put up a preview of the book here, and it does look pretty amusing.

Shadoweyes Vol. 2 Shadoweyes in Love

by Ross Campbell; Slave Labor Graphics, $12.95

Here’s another book I could have picked up at TCAF (are you noticing a theme for this week?), but I didn’t see the point, since I haven’t gotten the first volume yet.  Instead, I picked up a self-published book by Campbell (he wasn’t at his table at the time, sadly, so I didn’t get to meet him) that I will hopefully be reviewing soon.

Anyway, Shadoweyes sounds very different from the usual Ross Campbell book, in that it doesn’t appear to be built around the relationships of punky, kind of emo chunky girls who experiment with their sexuality.  I don’t mean to put his work down, this is exactly why I’ve enjoyed his books so far, but it’s good to see him branching out into other things.

Shadoweyes has something to do with an alien and a young girl, and I guess in this volume, LOVE!  See, Campbell’s one of those artists where I don’t care to know what the book will be about; I just know I’ll enjoy it.

The Books I Think You Should Buy:

Dong Xaoi Vietnam 1965

by Joe Kubert; DC, $19.99

This is a strange, but important graphic novel by a comics legend.  Here’s what I thought of the book when I read it back in August:

There was a point early into this book where I feared I’d made a mistake in starting to read it.  It seemed like a no-brainer to me – I love war comics, often feel the lack of good comics set in the Vietnam War, and I have the utmost respect for Joe Kubert.  What could go wrong?

The problem is that the book looks just like the cover.  Kubert didn’t exactly finish his pencils, eschewed a panel grid in favour of having two or three illustrations spread across the page, and decided to print the book on the same grey paper you see on the cover.  All of that I could get past, except I found the writing at the beginning to be painfully amateurish, as he tried (not too hard) to establish some of the characters that made up Special Forces team A-313, without explaining much context for their mission, which at the beginning, involved training and supporting a variety of local forces in a remote outpost near the Cambodian border.

Now, I’m very willing to cut someone with Kubert’s street cred a ton of slack, and I’m quite glad I did.  After the men of A-313 get transferred to Dong Xoai, and get their name changed to A-342 (does this have significance?  It gets mentioned a lot), the book seriously picks up.  Basically, these guys are in a poorly-defended base, filled with ARVN, Saigon ‘Cowboy’, Montagnard, and Cambodian forces.  They quickly realize that they face an invasion by VC and NVA forces, and rush to fortify their position.

When the attack comes, the book becomes pretty gripping, as Kubert shows time and again the resourcefulness and tenacity of the American forces (A-342 was joined by a small contingent of Seabees before the attack).

This book is based on the actual events that took place in Dong Xoai, and when one reads the lengthy notes and accounting of the battle provided by the surviving Marines (which takes up like 20 pages of minutely detailed writing), it becomes hard to see where things are fictionalized, aside from the changed names of our heroes.  Instead, Kubert has created a serious and accurate piece of war history, and his book stands as a strong testament to the bravery of the men involved.

Which brings me to my biggest issue with this book.  Was the battle at Dong Xoai important to anyone beyond the men who were there?  Was this an important turning point in the war, or a watershed moment that led to stronger US involvement in Vietnam?  I feel like I could have really used a little more context to put these events in perspective.  Don’t get me wrong, the battle makes a very good story; the historian in me needs more guidance in interpreting its importance.

Hellblazer City of Demons

by Si Spencer and Sean Murphy; Vertigo, $14.99

I read these comics in March.  Here’s what I thought at the time:

While I always like a good John Constantine story, my interest in this mini-series was largely fueled by my regard for Sean Murphy’s artwork on Joe the Barbarian.

This story is kind of strange.  In the first issue, Constantine gets hit by a car, and ends up in the hospital for a while.  While there, a pair of doctors extract some of his demon blood, and use it to experiment on just about any other surgery patient they can find.  This leads to a number of random acts of violence around London, which John has to investigate.

What makes this series strange is the way in which Spencer takes a lot of space to develop a number of characters who are then quickly killed off or otherwise dispatched.  While I liked these little character studies, I found that it disrupted the flow of the narrative each time.

But, since I bought these comics for Murphy’s artwork, I was still quite happy with the whole thing.  His work is not as inventive as it was on Joe, but it’s still very good.  I found it a little reminiscent of Shade-era Chris Bachalo (mostly because of the lines on peoples’ noses), which is always a good thing.

So, what would you buy Were Money No Object?

Get in touch and share your thoughts on what I've written: jfulton@insidepulse.com