Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #65 by Drew Barth

Detective of the Century

John Allison is one of the most consistent comic writers of the past twenty-five years. Starting out with Bobbinsin 1998, his characters and story evolved into Scary-Go-Rounda few years after (around the time I jumped in), which led to Bad Machinery, and a later return to Bobbins. But what makes Allison’s work so good and so consistent over these many years is how he is able to take a character from Scary-Go-Roundlike Esther de Groot and expand into a new series, Giant Days, without losing anything from her original voice or character after ten years since her inception. And he is working with those same skills with Charlotte Grote in his new series from Boom! Studios, Wicked Things.

If you’re at all familiar with Bad Machinery and its mystery kids, you’re already familiar with Charlotte and her companion, Claire Little. If Bad Machinery is a series you’re not familiar with, then now is a great time to get caught up as it is a stellar work of comics. And luckily, as Allison had done with Giant Days, Wicked Things is a new story and setting with a couple existing characters—you don’t need all of the previous work to understand who they are as they’re established within a few panels. And those few panels help establish the story here: Charlotte Grotte is nominated for “Teen Detective of the Year” before going to university and must travel to London to attend the award ceremony and, while in attendance, a murder occurs. From this first issue, we’re going full Agatha Christie in the best way possible.

What truly elevates all of these characters and their moments of humor and absurdity is the wonderful line work of Max Sarin. Every panel is packed with fluid motion, expressive faces, and the kind of keen sense for detail-packed composition that makes a reader never want to miss anything on the page. They help to establish a different mood and feel from Bad Machinery while still maintaining the heart of what made characters like Charlotte and Claire so memorable and endearing. At times, it’s like reading through storyboards for a cartoon as the fluidity sings through the bleed-space into each moment.

When I say that John Allison is consistent, Wicked Things is one of the reasons why I say it. Sometimes it’s hard to find a first issue I want to look through over again and again like this—for the Charlotte being the same Lottie I’ve been reading for a decade, for the art that springs forth with so much life—and it makes me so excited for how this medium can express so much on the page. And there is still so much to this story for Allison and Sarin to explore with the cliff-hanger the first issue ends on that I’m shaking with excitement for it to return. This is what good comics can do and it’s always time to read as much as we can now.

Get excited. Solve a mystery.

Drew Barth (Episode 331) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #64 by Drew Barth

The Big Reads

We’ve got some spare time on our hands. I personally have been watching way more cooking videos on YouTube than I thought possible. Luckily, there’s a wealth of longer comic content that can help bridge those days a bit better than going through Tiger King for the third time.

I probably haven’t talked about Warren Ellis recently, so let’s fix that. And what better way to fix things is there than with a series all about fixing a horribly damaged world with archaeology and punching: Planetary. Conceived as a love letter to all things genre—westerns, pulps, giant monsters, spy thrillers—Ellis and co-creator John Cassaday sculpted one of the most enduring pieces of comic fiction over the course of its twenty- year run. And it is a perfect comic to read now. Filled with an expansive wonder for the world and an inter-woven mystery that begs to be solved, Planetary is absolutely ripe to binge read when you can barely remember the last time you talked to a person outside of a Zoom meeting. Luckily too, after finishing, there’s always Ellis’ Castlevania if you still need to go down more infinite corridors.

One of the most iconic shojo manga from Chiho Sato and Be-Papas, Revolutionary Girl Utena revolves around revolutionizing the world, and what it means to protect the people you love and to become the savior prince in your own story. Enshrined in symbolism, nobility, and many many sword fights, Utena is a watershed series for many readers. There are comics before Utena and after Utena. And the whole story is now available both to read and to watch—the latter made available to freely watch online from its owner, Nozomi Entertainment. While both versions of the story do have their differences, going through both is excellent.

Speaking of solid, no other graphic novel released in the 21^stcentury has had the solid impact of David Mazzuchelli’s Asterios Polyp. It is the platonic ideal of the graphic novel. It is a brick of a story about the titular bastard of an architect who is broken down into his barest essentials. Mazzucelli is easily one of the best creators to work in comics due to his understanding of line, space, and pace. Every piece of this book is crafted with the utmost care—not a single chunk of blank space feels out of place nor does any line look as though it was simply placed. So much of this story works in how characters interact through the space of panels and how they break around those panels. Asterios Polypis the kind of comic to sink into and simply marvel at what Mazzuchelli has accomplished.

And finally, if there’s ever a comic series that exists for a time of quarantine, it’s Homestuck. At over five thousand pages long, this series will keep you entertained, confused, and scared all at the same time. Scared mostly due to its sheer volume as it is one of the longest works of fiction in the English language. But still. It’s an appropriate comic for now since the majority of its characters rarely ever physically interact with one another, every piece of communication is via chat logs and video as the characters are either on different planets or in different time streams. It’s a weird comic about isolation and video games made even more appropriate now that we’re stuck at home.

Get excited. We’re here together.

Drew Barth (Episode 331) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #63 by Drew Barth

We’re All In This Together

If you’re like me, you enjoy the weekly excursion to your local comic shop every Wednesday to pick up your fresh batch of monthlies. But our weeks are getting different now. Even Diamond, the main distributor of comics for every major publisher, has halted all new comic shipments due to COVID-19. And that’s a good thing. People need to stay home.

This is going to be rough for creators, though. And that is one of the reasons that so many publishers are now putting out different comics online to keep people engaged over these next few months. While some of these comics are issues that publishers have had up previously, they are being highlighted again due to our current pandemic. So I present to you a brief list of publishers making first issues or full graphic novels available, free of charge, to help keep us sane and together.

First up is the publisher I typically talk about the most: Image Comics. At the moment you are able to read through the first issues of 133 Image series. None of these are quick previews with a link to where to buy the rest at the end—these are the full twenty-plus page issues. I could recommend nearly every issue just to try it and see what you like, but particular attention should be paid to series like Pretty Deadly, The Wicked + The Divine, Saga, Monstress, Paper Girls, and Trees. The quality here is outstanding and you’re likely to find a new favorite.

Next is another wonderful publisher I’ve talked about previously: ShortBox. Over the next few weeks, ShortBox will be providing a swath of their graphic novels for free via Gumroad. The first work up is Beneath the Dead Oak Tree by Emily Carroll, and if you’re at all familiar with her short comic collection, Through the Woods, you should be prepared for another masterclass in comic storytelling and gothic settings.

Vault Comics began only a few years ago and already they’ve become one of the best outlets for science fiction and fantasy comics on the market. They had also started putting their first issues online for free a while ago as well. And while these issues have been up for some time, it’s always good to look over a good publisher and see what kind of work they have that you may not have picked up previously. Series like Fearscape, Friendo, and Vagrant Queen demonstrate how much quality can come out of a newer press during the last decade.

And next we have a publisher I’ve been watching for a bit due to how interesting their publishing model is: releasing whole series at once either in a single issue box or trade collection so the reader can binge the series like they would a TV show. They’ve released their first wave of eight series with names like Roxane Gay and Jeff Lemire attached and, much like Vault, have been making their first issues free for anyone curious. With their second wave coming up soon, it’s a pretty good time to get a feel for their series now.

Finally, we have Dynamite Entertainment. Right now, they have fifteen first issues available for free via Comixology with more slated for release in the upcoming weeks. Dynamite is one of the biggest publishers of licensed property comics like Army of Darkness, Xena: Warrior Princess, and Shaft, so seeing them providing free first issues is fantastic. These are the kinds of properties that can get new readers excited about comics, especially when they wouldn’t know where to start on other, longer running series. So now is the time to start looking at some new series you hadn’t considered in the past, or finally finishing another that you had dropped earlier. It’s going to be weird for a while, but it’s the kind of weird we can get through together. At an appropriate distance.

Get excited. Wash your hands.

Drew Barth (Episode 331) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #61 by Drew Barth

State of War

In the pantheon of planets in the DC Universe, Rann is underrated. By all accounts, it is considered a paradise in its small corner of the galaxy. Its capital city, Ranagar, looks as though it were carved from glass in the dreams of sleeping gods. Rann is also a planet that can’t stop going to war. Its genesis and fertility crisis came from a war: the Rann-Thanagar war was one of the largest galactic events in the DC Universe outside of a Crisis event. Now we see Rann being swarmed by the Pykkt.

One of DC’s oldest heroes lies at the center of Rann’s wars and is being brought back in a limited series from Tom King, Mitch Gerads, and Evan Shaner: Adam Strange.

As a character, Adam Strange is an icon, but in a way almost completely separate from DC. He is a quintessential 50s spaceman: jet pack, space suit and helmet, and a ray gun with ambiguous powers. His origin story is even more sci-fi pulp: beamed from Earth to the distant planet of Rann to be its savior from evil and sterility.

Much like King and Gerads’ efforts with Mister Miracle last year, Strange Adventures dives into some of DC’s cosmic heroes to explore themes and ideas in a single twelve issue run that no other series in DC’s current line-up is tackling. Adam Strange will always be a sci-fi pulp ideal of a adventurer, but now we’re able to see how the adventuring has affected him and the family he’s created on Rann. Continuing off from Mister Miracle, we’re getting a closer look at what war and conflict do to these characters—how do they cope? And how do they exist in a world that doesn’t seem to care? In this first issue of Strange Adventures we already have Adam Strange writing a memoir and going viral as a man screams at him during a book signing for the conflict on Rann. But then we also have him flying across Rann, blasting aliens with his ray gun.

Strange Adventures is a comic of contrasts. From Gerads’ sketchy, almost surreal vision of Earth to Shaner’s pure pulp alien landscapes across Rann, we have these divergent moods of what a character like Adam Strange can encompass. There is room for creators to experiment and breathe with characters that may be limited in normal continuity. The focus is more on story and character than simply working through to the next yearly event. And we as readers can revel in these new contrasts. Characters we have forgotten can come back and still receive the love and care they deserve. And in this instance, we get a strange off-world adventure that fits right in on Earth.

Get excited. Get ready for Adventure.

Drew Barth (Episode 331) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #60 by Drew Barth

Stick ‘Em Up

Vault Comics continues to impress. I’ve previously written about them here.  Since last year, Vault has become a consistent figure on the weekly comic shelves. While their series are typically science fiction, fantasy, horror, or some combination of those three, this last month they debuted a series that delves more into magical slice-of-life with Finger Guns. Created by Justin Richard and Val Halvorson, Finger Guns has the makings of something great.

Issue one accomplishes what any reader wants from a first issue: characters (Wes and Sadie), a  hook (both characters have the ability to make people angry or calm by pointing their fingers at them), and some complications (both characters have parents who are either absent or unrelenting). As a first issue, Finger Guns is almost textbook in how it paints the world its characters live in. But where Richards and Halvorson excel in Finger Guns is in how they approach their story. From the outset, the focus for Sadie and Wes is not in their powers, it’s on the relationship between them and their parents. We see how Wes’ father is never there through a series of texts, and we can hear Sadie’s parents arguing long before we ever see them on the page. As readers, we get burial and deflection from Wes and Sadie respectively. And for the most part, there’s nothing either of them can do about their situations.

Well, mostly. The first issue of Finger Guns ends with Sadie’s hand behind her back, finger gun primed, to calm her parents down. But it’s stated a few pages earlier that this placation is only ever temporary, and Sadie says that with the heaviness of experience.

What propels Finger Guns outside of its full characters is the way they are shown to us. Val Halvorson is a master at his craft. From blocking out the moment where Wes realizes what his finger guns can do to the passing of time between Wes being at home, on the bus, and at the mall in one seamless transition to that final panel with Sadie’s hand behind her back shows this phenomenal awareness of how readers’ eyes follow forms and motion across the page. The cleanliness of the lines and the perfect palette set by colorist Rebecca Nalty establish a mood and tone to the story without using words. The visual splendor on display is stunning, even when it’s just two characters laying on a car.

Last week I talked about an issue one and this week I am doing the same, but these are different kinds of first issues. There are first issues that need to show a world; there are first issues that need to establish boundaries to an idea that seemed massive; there are first issues that need to put a threat to scale; and there are first issues that need to show you a character. Finger Guns’ strength comes from its characters. I’m excited to see where Richards and Halvorson take them.

Get excited. Point them guns.

Drew Barth (Episode 331) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #59 by Drew Barth

Today’s Double Feature

A month ago I wrote about some of the upcoming comics this year that have me most excited. And to my excitement, one of those just released. Tartarus is a new series from Image by Johnnie Christmas and Jack T. Cole. The duo spin a new universe filled to bursting with technology bordering on magic and a family story built on deception and secrets. The first issue hits all of the marks—new worlds, interesting characters from their first panels, and a story that burns slow over its fifty-five pages. But what is most interesting is the way Christmas and Cole build their story.

The first issue of Tartarus is split in two—one story in the past, one story in the future. Both stories center around either imprisoned Surka or her daughter, Tilde. And this dual family narrative is what makes Tartarus so interesting from the beginning—namely since Tilde doesn’t know her lineage. From the first page, Surka is a figure spoken of as a hushed legend. She’s the long shadow cast over the Baxnan empire whose crimes have landed her in a deep, dank pit on a mining colony’s prison. So of course she escapes from prison in this first story. But it is in this first story that we are introduced to her infant daughter, Tilde, and it is where we see Surka die.

And so begins the second part of Tartarus. Seventeen years later, Tilde is in a Baxnan empire military academy and learns that she was lied to about her parents. As a piece of family intrigue, it’s incredibly interesting since the above-mentioned reveal is the kind of thing saved for the end of the first arc. But here, we know that Tilde is Surka’s daughter, and we know that she has been lied to most of her life. Where will the story go? If you’re a team like Christmas and Cole, you can take this story so much deeper. The questions set up in the first issue (namely how did Tilde end up in an academy for the military that killed her mom?) are the kinds of questions series are built around. And with the abundance of world-building on every page, there’s nearly another series worth of characters and story to to build off of.

I don’t know if this dual story structure will continue. The interplay of past and future allows the reader to start piecing together puzzles that characters don’t know exist and creates a different kind of reading experience, one that isn’t seen all that often in monthly comics.

Get excited. Split the story.

Drew Barth (Episode 331) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.