Yes, usually I review things in these posts in the order I get them. I’ve been sitting on several longer form graphic novel type thingies, though, so I decided to simply review them alphabetically. When it comes to alphabetizing, I’m the king!

Our first fine selection is Aetheric Mechanics by Warren Ellis, Gianluca Pagliarani, and Chris Dreier. This is the latest comic from Ellis’s Apparat line, and it’s published by Avatar and costs 699 cents. It’s a slim volume, but that’s still good value for your hard-earned coin.

This book from Avatar gets back to what I was ranting about in my post about November’s Previews. If you have something against Avatar because they began as a porn publisher, okay. If you have something against them because they let Ellis and Garth Ennis write stories in which people do horrible things to each other that they couldn’t do at Marvel, fine. But when Avatar publishes something good, should you hold it against them because of the other stuff they publish that you hate? The Apparat line allows Ellis to do one of the things that he does really well, which is re-imagine a world that is very much like our own but with significant changes that fall in line with old-school pulp fiction. Ellis has always been a “hard” science fiction guy, for the most part (I’m not getting into whether his science actually works, because that’s usually beyond me, but he’s still fascinated with cutting-edge science and tech), and when he writes in that genre, he often produces some very good stuff (even something like Planetary has a lot of elements of that). But he’s also excellent at pulp fiction, so when he combines those two, the result is usually worthwhile. The final thing he seems to be interested in the most is puzzles (which ties back into the science and technology, if only obliquely), so Fell becomes a fascinating exercise in detection (when, you know, it shows up). What he tries to do at Marvel, and why he often fails, is shoehorn this kind of stuff into their existing characters, which works on something like Iron Man but doesn’t work as well with some other characters. Plus, because he’s working within a set framework, even when he can write this kind of stuff at Marvel, it feels like he’s bored. But at Avatar, he can indulge his weird fascination with carving up bodies, but he can also write something like this, which is a marvelous piece of short fiction. Yes, this is a roundabout way of me saying that Aetheric Mechanics is a damned fine comic book. Aren’t you glad I’m so long-winded?

We begin the story in March 1907 in London, where Dr. Robert Watcham has just come back from the war. Those history people among you might recall that England wasn’t exactly engaged in a war in 1907, but that’s okay, as this isn’t our world. Watcham has been fighting Ruritania (which is pretty much Germany) and we see on the first few pages technology that was far beyond what humanity had achieved in our 1907. So we’re in a standard steampunk world, where we get a Victorian (or, in this case, Edwardian) setting and outlandish technology. Lots of writers have made this work, and it’s always fun, so we’ll let Ellis take us along. If, while we’re reading the first few pages, we notice something familiar about Dr. Watcham, that’s not surprising, as he soon returns to his rooms on “Dilke Street” and reunites with his old friend, the world’s greatest amateur detective, Sax Raker. Raker looks and talks a lot like Sherlock Holmes. Ellis is writing a Sherlock Holmes pastiche set in a steampunk world. Not a bad way to go, if you ask me.

Raker and Watcham immediately get involved in a case, one Raker calls “The Case of the Man Who Wasn’t There.” Apparently a murderer was seen by witnesses to “have flickered in and out of view” while killing his victims. Both victims were involved in the study of, you guessed it, aetheric mechanics, which is how the world manages to have space travel in 1907. According to Raker, “apergy engines and cavorite rotors bend space, and the space impels the craft.” That’s helpful! As Raker has nothing to go on with regard to the murderer, he must concentrate on the reason engineers who specialize in this area of expertise are being killed. So he does.

The case follows a fairly standard Holmesian line, as we meet Raker’s ally on the police force, Inspector Jarratt, and the mysterious woman in his life, Inanna Meyer - Watcham even mentions that Raker refers to her only as “that woman,” which is how Holmes referred to Irene Adler - and Holmes solves the case seemingly out of nowhere. It’s a fine pastiche of the Holmes stories, for what that’s worth. If you think it’s simply a “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” book, though, Ellis is smart enough to give us a truly grand ending, one that not only explains the case but also helps illuminate both the world Raker lives in and what is important to him. It’s a breathtaking ending, and comes full circle to something that occurs earlier, when Dr. Watcham is flying back to his rooms. The naval pilot with whom he hitches a ride talks about flying in space thusly: “The vibrations from the spin of the drive arms, sir, and the motion of heat through the casements to space, which is very cold. The whole ship sings quietly, like a gently struck tuning fork.” This is a very nice Ellisian sentiment, and it gives us a glimpse into this world and helps explain what happens at the end, beyond the obvious (and I’m not giving it away, which is why this is difficult to discuss). In many ways, this is a typical Ellis comic. But when Ellis is fully engaged, his typical stuff is dazzling, and this is a good example of it.

Pagliarani has that incredibly detailed art that is kind of an Avatar house style, but I’ve always enjoyed the Avatar house style, and for this book, it’s almost necessary. This is a world of intricate and artistic engineering, and so the comic must look not only like something from early in the twentieth century, but also hyper-modern. The page with the giant robot attacking the town is astounding, for instance. The book looks like it leaped from the pages of a pulp magazine, and it’s wonderful to look at.

If you’re a fan of Warren Ellis, you should give up buying all those Marvel books he writes and give this a try. Even if you’re not a fan of Warren Ellis because you’ve only read his tired Marvel books, this will show you why so many people like him. Aetheric Mechanics is a marvelous comic. I just wish we got more like it from Mr. Ellis.

Next we have Almighty by Edward Laroche (it’s lettered by Jaymes Reed). It’s self-published and costs 10 dollars. It’s the first in what appears to be a series of graphic novels, so let’s keep that in mind.

The back cover of Almighty reads “A girl has been abducted/And a killer hired to find her/And bring her home.” This intriguing premise is actually better than the actual book, which does indeed feature an abducted girl and a killer hired to bring her home. Laroche begins an ambitious tale in this volume, but it’s perhaps too ambitious, as we lose that simple idea and get involved in something much bigger and a little less interesting. Almighty isn’t a failure, especially as it’s the first part of a bigger story, but its loss of focus hurts it.

We begin in AD 2098, which is the first problem. Almost immediately we recognize that we’re in some post-Apocalyptic world. Now, I have no problem with post-Apocalyptic worlds per se (Wasteland is one of the best comics out there right now), but it’s a mileau that can too easily fall into cliché, and Laroche struggles to keep it from doing so. The girl - Del - escapes from an isolated compound but is quickly tracked by her captors. As they’re about to get her, gunshots explode from the wilderness and blow them away. Del’s rescuer, a bald woman named Fale, tells her they need to make tracks.

It’s a gripping beginning, full of tension and sudden violence, and it sets the mood nicely. Laroche doesn’t have a problem writing or drawing tense action scenes. As we move along, we discover how Del was captured, and eventually the rest of the gang chases after her and Fale. We also find out a bit about the world, which has been shattered into anarchic zones through which our heroines must navigate to reach Del’s home. Del learns a little, but not much, about Fale, and there’s a confrontation with an evil creature living in one of the zones that turns people into pseudo-zombies. It ends ambiguously, but that’s to be expected, as it’s volume 1.

The problem with the book is that it doesn’t offer anything new. It quickly turns into a chase with weird creatures thrown in, and although Laroche does a nice job with the action, the actual plot is nothing special. A way around this, of course (as most plots are recycled), is to make the characters compelling, but Del and Fale aren’t - at least they aren’t yet. Del isn’t kidnapped for any reason, just that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. We know almost nothing about her, nor who her parents are (or whoever hired Fale). We know almost nothing about Fale either, so the two of them don’t really build a relationship over the course of the book. Fale obviously knows what she’s doing, and she is very protective of Del, but we don’t know if it’s just a job or if there’s something else that motivates her. Presumably we’ll find out in subsequent volumes, but it’s frustrating not getting anything like that here, especially with the expanded format Laroche chooses to work in. The blurb on the back promises a creepy psychological thriller (who is the girl? why was she kidnapped? who is the killer and why hire a killer?) but none of those questions are answered. Fale is a killer, true, but the implication is that she was a soldier - and although soldiers do kill, I doubt if many of us would call a soldier a “killer.”

Laroche does a good job with the art, evoking a crumbling world nicely. The inks are heavy and brooding, and the panels often tight and oppressive, making this a comic that feels like it’s closing in on you, which given the gang chasing Del and Fale and the monster at the end of the book (no, it’s not Grover) is probably appropriate. Laroche has some problems with faces, as Del looks a bit too cartoony to be in this book, but overall, the art, while rough, fits well with the tone of the comic and helps with the building of tension.

I’m not sure if this is Laroche’s first comics work or not, but it’s definitely rough. It has some potential, but falls too easily into predictability and cliché to work well. It is only 10 dollars, which is a plus, because it’s a nice thick volume, but it also doesn’t really make you want to find out more about the characters, which is a shame. I don’t know how many volumes Laroche has planned, but it would be nice to find out more about Del and Fale, which would probably make the book a lot more interesting. As a frenetic chase through a blasted landscape, it’s not bad. But it could be a lot better.

Moving on, we come to Dad! by Scott King, which is labeled as a “documentary graphic novel” (and yes, the exclamation point belongs in the title, confound it!). It’s published by Th3rd World Studios, and as I got an advance copy, mine doesn’t have a price on it. But hey! I checked the web site, and it’s 20 bucks and should have been available on 8 November. So there you go.

Dad! is an interesting comic. King appears on the first page in a photograph, and he tells us that he is indeed a “living stereotype” - he’s 24, is unemployed, lives at home, and reads comic books. But there’s a good reason he lives at home - his father has severe health problems, and he’s taking care of him until he leaves for graduate school. The comic is a “documentary” of the final two weeks of his life at home. In the back of the book, he explains he took over 8300 photographs and recorded 16 hours of audio to make the book. The first few pages are photographs arranged as panels with word balloons (it’s an odd effect) and then most of the rest of the book features the art, which, as King explains, are the photos run through four different filters in Photoshop, then sent to Illustrator, where they were “traced” and then sent back to Photoshop for more tweaking. I’ll get back to the art.

This is a fascinating comic, and its greatest strength is also, conversely, is biggest weakness. It’s almost painfully naturalistic, as much as a carefully manipulated version of the events of the two weeks can be. Much of the book takes place in the Kings’ small house and even more in his father’s - Kevin - bedroom. There are a few asides in the book - King shows us how to pick a hard shell crab and how to make an omelet, both of which are relevant to the narrative, plus we get three separate sections going over Kevin’s life and medical history, which is important - but it’s usually just King and his stepmother (with some cameos by other people) dealing with Kevin. This gives it an immediacy and emotional closeness that makes this a powerful examination of a man falling apart and how his family has to deal with him. This also makes it a bit more claustrophobic than might be comfortable. But what King does is eschew narrative almost completely, so there’s very little arc to the book. We keep waiting for a epiphanic moment, but, like real life, those are often lacking. When it ends, it ends, and we get a brief epilogue in the form of a letter that Kevin wrote earlier this year (the book takes place in 2006) which again offers little in terms of resolution. Does this matter? It depends. It’s a compelling book mostly because of what has happened to Kevin and how King and Kevin’s wife struggle with his orneriness (and he can be ornery), so the lack of a story is mitigated somewhat. But you shouldn’t expect any deep insights into what it means to care for an ailing parent, beyond the fact that it’s really difficult. We could, I suppose, glean some deep meaning from it, as Kevin’s condition spiralled out of control from a seemingly innocuous initial problem and perhaps speaks to a lack of health insurance or the callousness of the medical community, but it does not feel like King is trying for that. He simply turned on a “camera,” left it running for two weeks, and then turned it off. It’s an odd sensation.

The art, similarly, adds to this claustrophobic feeling. As it’s not drawn but photographed and then filtered, it has a very “realistic” feel to it, not in the way artists like Greg Land are “realistic” but in a far grittier way, as King doesn’t smooth out any rough edges and, in fact, makes the finished art rougher than the photos from which they’re taken. It’s not perfect art because occasionally it’s bit too washed out, and the grittiness is often over-rendered, making it difficult to see some of the smudgier corners of panels. Like the naturalism of the story, the naturalism of the art is both a strength and a weakness. It provides no distance from the story, but occasionally the closeness overwhelms us.

Ultimately, this is a character study of a man who is confined to bed and isn’t happy about it. Kevin is not really all that pleasant a person, because he refuses to accept the limitations that his health has placed on him. King himself remains somewhat of an enigma, as he stays off-camera for the most part and narrates the story somewhat dispassionately. This is perhaps why his departure is awkward, because suddenly he’s a character in the story interacting with the focus of the book. It doesn’t add the emotional resonance that would wind up the book well, and it takes away from the detachment that King has used throughout. Like the rest of the book, King’s brief appearances (he shows up occasionally before the end) feel strange, as if they don’t quite fit.

Again, all of these criticisms about the book don’t necessarily make it a bad comic. They might, for you, enhance the reading experience. King does a fine job with this, actually, given that Kevin’s condition could make the book overly sentimental or even mawkish. That King stays away from that is a credit to him. Nobody ever feels sorry for themselves, even though everyone is sad at one point or another, and that helps invest us further in the story. We get to know Kevin very well, and it’s fascinating that King, in delving so deep into his father’s life, pulls a nice trick where we feel sympathetic for Kevin without liking him all that much. That’s a bold move, because it is his father, after all. That we can feel all the emotions for Kevin that we often feel about our own parents is the book’s true triumph.

Dad! is far from perfect, but it’s a powerful comic nevertheless. I’d like to thank Th3rd World Studios for sending it to me and point out that on the inside cover it reads that some of the material might not be included in the final version. As I’m not getting into too many specific details, I think I’m safe. King has attempted something rather rare in comics, and has produced an interesting book. It’s worth a look.

Next in the alphabetical queue is Fishtown by Kevin Colden. IDW published this sucker and slapped a $19.99 price tag on it. You can find this on-line, however, if that’s your thing. Despite the fact that I have to spend money for something like this, I really do prefer reading solid books. I’m just a Luddite that way!

The name of the book comes from the neighborhood in Philadelphia where the events take place (here’s a map). In May 2003, four teenagers killed another teen and dumped his body in the Delaware River. Colden takes that event and spins a horrifying tale about the murderers, the victim, and the motives behind the crime. It’s not a terribly pleasant comic to read, but it is gripping, even though it might be a bit too nihilistic for its own good.

Colden sets the story after the teens have been arrested and are being interviewed separately by (presumably) a psychiatrist. He does a nice job introducing the principals - Angelica, Justin, Keith, Adrian, and Jesse - through these interviews and almost washed-out panels conveying information about who’s who. We get deeper into Angelica’s home life than any of the others, but we all learn quickly that these kids are seriously disturbed. Angelica has problems at school and her mother is tired of her using drugs and generally wasting her life, while Keith and Adrian (who are brothers) live with their uncle, who beats Adrian and wants him out of the house when he turns 18. They simply move through life, doing drugs, getting drunk, and, in Angelica’s case, screwing more than one of them. There’s nothing likeable or even all that sympathetic about them - except for the brief moment of sympathy we have for Angelica, who cuts herself and obviously has serious mental problems. Other than that, they’re complete sociopaths, so when they decide to kill their friend for $500, it comes as less of a shock than it might otherwise (well, the fact that the book is based on a real-life case and that we know someone is going to die also lessens the shock, but even so, we’re not surprised that these kids are willing to do this to another human being).

Colden tells the story with a chilling lack of emotional involvement, as he simply presents the kids telling their story. This makes it a much more powerful comic, because he’s not preaching about anything - the facts in the case are these, the book says, and it’s up to us to glean meaning from it. Colden doesn’t even imply anything in the writing (he does in the art, and it’s wonderfully subtle, but I’ll get to it) about why these kids did this. The advertising text on the back reads, “[T]his story explores what led these teens to commit such a heinous crime, and the lasting consequences of their actions,” but what’s horrifying about the book is that Colden does not do this - the kids want $500, sure, but their true motives remain hidden, which makes the comic all the more troubling. What we can infer from the comic is that these kids were simply abandoned by anyone who could have made a difference in their lives, and they saw so much horror in their everyday lives that they simply shut down, turning into automatons for whom a murder is nothing. This certainly doesn’t excuse them, but it’s fascinating to look at the way their lives have worked and what Colden does to implicate others. He does this mostly with the art.

Colden’s art, which is colored like it is on the cover, all yellow tones except for the salmon-colored blood, is wonderful. The yellow gives it a flatness (which I don’t mean as an insult) that adds to the effect of ennui and makes it believable that these kids could do something so terrible, and when Colden does get to the murder, the art becomes horrifyingly intimate and chills us to the bone. What Colden does with the kids’ faces is stunning, as they barely betray any emotion, and when they do, it’s fleeting. It’s as if there’s so much that is horrible for these kids that only the worst things can get through.(...)