The DFC , the first 10 weeks

The DFC is an interesting animal, partly a nostalgic trip for publisher? David Fickling and his key author Phillip Pullman to relive the pleasures of their childhood by producing a high quality, full colour British anthology comic, and part, I think, a tryout farm for graphic novels for Random house, the parent publisher.

The quality of the comics between the covers is undeniable. In the first 10 issues only one strip fell flat for me and that was Jim Medway's New at The Zoo. The rest ranged between very good and outstanding.

The first strip in the initial six issues was Pullman's "Adventures of John Blake". I think reading it that it took Pullman a while to get the hang of pacing a six page weekly strip. The first four issues were set up that a more experienced comic writer could have folded into a single episode, John Blake is on a sailing ship that passes through time via a strange fog, he becomes involved with a young girl who he and his ship mates save from the sea. There's other business going on, someone investigating Blake's ship, the parents of the rescued girl squabbling but esswentially the first four issues are someone learning how to tell a comic strip story. The last two episodes of Blake's story finally get moving with some real action and then the story goes on hiatus. Character is where Pullman is at his best in thiscomic as each member of the crew, Serena's bickering parents and even the mystery characters are all very clearly individuals. The art, by John Aggs is superb wearing a mixture of apparent influences, both manga and european/British and not a hint os superhero comics styling in sight. Aggs panel to panel storytelling is excellent with more well used camera angles then I've seen anywhere except Eisner's Spirit. Aggs builds tension exceptionally well, a superb example being when the crew are exploring a rotting hulk of a cargo vessel and in one page Aggs shows a character's reliance on his rifle for courage, his isolation on the massive vessel and his extreme nervousness, all in a clever melding of European clearline with manga speedlines.

The next story is Super Animal Adventure Squad, a one pager by James Turner, would have sat as comfortably in WHizzer and Chips as John Blake would have in the Eagle. It is a superb humour strip combining knockabout humour with a light but biting parody of what tends to pass as adventure TV for kids, think Power Rangers specifically. The art is light and open with minimal backgrounds and works perfectly.

The standout strip for me is "The Boss" by Mother and son team, John and Patrice Aggs. John's writing on "The Boss" brought to mind one of the best Children's drama's ever "Press Gang". To my mind the writing is that good. Aggs takes what is essentially an Enid Blyton Famous Five plot, plucky kids foil robbers through their own intelligence and the fact adults always underestimate kids, and imbued it with enough character, humour and believable action to transcend anypossible influences. Aggs' characters are believable school kids capable of fighting and supporting each other at the same time and were recognisbale among kids I know. Patrice Aggs' art is what would make or break a story like this and in Patrice we have the perfect artist for the tale. Patrice has a style reminiscient of Warren Pleece and Nick Abadzis but much cleaner. Her kids are fluid, relaxed and all slightly crumpled looking, her teachers looklike people you'd see working in schools, grey and weary but dedicated and occasionaly enjoying the power a little too much. The story also plays with the natural heirarchy that comes into play among groups of kids showing their almost animal like pack instinct to follow an alpha male.

My other personal favourite is Vern and Lettuce, a gentle, dreamlike mix of rabbits, moles and a sheep groundskeeper. The story, such as it is, is flimsy but works on an emotional level to give you a warm fuzzy feeling,

The DFC, like most good comics anthologies, is fluid. If you don't like a strip chances are it'll be gone in a few weeks and the strips you do like will undoubtedly appear in collected form sooner or later. I was looking for something to share with my seven year old daughter and The DFC has proved to be perfect. We each have our favourite strips and as she gets older she'll enjoy some others better.

Glamorpuss #1

The problem that is Dave Sim. Dave Sim is one of the most individual and talented cartoonists to come out of the North American continent in the last 30 years. Cerebus the Ardvaark was always innovative, beautifully rendered, well written (even when what he was writing about was offending so many people) and uniquely lettered. The problem was his subject matter. Cerebus after Jaka's Story saw Sim being written off as more and more mysoginistic and then he found God (but in his own strange way) and would have been better thought of if he'd had leprosy. His opinions made him a moral leper. Yet he is still a unique talent.

There's a side of me feels I can't like Glamorpuss because it's author is a mysoginistic bigot and as a right on, pc, modern man I must shun him. But another, winning, side of me looks at the talent instead of the man and enjoys Glamorpuss.

Glamorpuss is Dave Sim trying to study the photorealistic style of Alex Raymond and John Prentice and Al Williamson, looking at why they did what they did, artistically, and trying to figure out their artistic choices. You also get some historical tidbits about the lousy treatment their work received from the syndicates. This part works wonderfully and I found it totally engrossing. There's also a middle section "The self-education of N'Atashae" and this is where it becomes more difficult. The section is a study of female shallowness wrapped up in gorgeous art. It's beautifully written also but you feel bad for liking it. It's hard to judge seriously at the moment, from this first episode it could dengenerate into a Dave Sim screed against women or it could becomse something far more interesting. I hope that's the case and I'll give it a couple more issues before I decide whether to keep reading or drop it like a hot potato.

The Story of an Idea

Finance has been tight this month so purchases have been minimal, no Final Crisis, no DC Universe 0, no Skrull invasions. I don't feel any the less for it as I haven't bought a Marvel comic that didn't come out of a bargain bin for a very long time and the recent grim and gritty turn at DC, 20 years to late, has soured me on their books too. I miss the days of story first, continuity second and heroes who were heroes. The books are unreadable to me and probably unpenetrable to anybody with less than a Masters Degree in DC or Marvel history. Maybe Morrison will be the saviour of the Universe. I like the symmetry of Barry Allen returning in a Final Crisis after dying in the first.

Anyway, for a comics fix that's left me with anything I can get for free. Not being a gamer, a techie or a furry 70% of webcomics I looked at sailed through the outer atmosphere and over my head. I read a manga on line (Mushi Shi) which was absolutely superb and I want to purchase it asap, but I won't bit torrent stuff so little worth reading was left to me on that front.

So I started fishing around for free, downloadable pdf comics. Amid a whole load of rubbish I found something truly outstanding, "The Story of an Idea". A twelve page comic by Moebius, yes that Moebius, about the foundation of the Red Cross and it's history and work. It's available as a free download and more impressively, they'll mail you a free European album size copy from Switzerland, for nothing.

Moebius does a superb job breaking down nearly a hundred and fifty years across 8 pages of comics. He starts with Henry Dunant, founder of what would become the International Comitteee of The Read Cross, on a battlefield in Solferino, Northern Italy, in 1859, follows Dunant's efforts with very carefully chosen moments and moves up to present day with a brief overview of the work and growth of the Red Cross/Red Crescent.

It's a compelling story and gives Moebius the opportunity to work in most of the styles we've seem from him. He effortlessly melds Alex Raymond like photorealism with his grainy Blueberry style and brief glimpses of the clearline cartoon style that appears sometimes in his SF work.

This is so good at doing it's job that I'd recommend getting the print version even if you had to pay for it. You can link to the order page here

47

Mostly this has been about comics but today something different.

Walter Mosley wrote a children's book, what is now called a YA (young adult?) novel. I've read much of Mosley's work and been impressed by it all, his Easy Rawlins novels are some of the finest examples of crime fiction on the market and books like The man in THe Basement" make him stand out even more as a writer. Mosley gives me, a middle-aged white man, a brief glimpse of what it would be like to have been black in the 50's and 60's in the Southern USA, a look at the fear and the racism and the bigoted attitudes on both sides of the fence and it ain't pretty. But at the very foundations of Mosley's writing is a tiny nugget of hope for humanity. Most critics reviewing Mosley's work pick up on his understanding of the sheer bleakness of black life and ignore the fact that the man's writing show him to be an optimist, battered and bruised but still an optimist.

47 is perhaps his bleakest and most optimistic work. It's a tale of slavery in 1830's USA and it doesn't pull punches for being a YA novel. The tales of beatings, brandings, cotton picking and the general life of slaves has an honesty to it that makes you feel embarrassed to be white. It makes it very clear that the only difference between slaves and dogs is dogs were better treated and better fed. As the book goes on it moves from being a terse historical drama and moves into the realms of Science Fiction and Fantasy. It makes the move gracefully though, the language changes little and the concepts tall John, a visiting alien who looks black, brings with him of interstellar travel and the end of the Universe sit with unexpected comfort in the cotton fields and slaves graveyard. In the hands of a lesser writer this would have been an historical tome the size of a house brick and a fantasy trilogy three times as large again. In Walter Mosley's hands the book becomes about bigger themes. It's about how people treat each other, how mistreatment can beget mistreatment but can also bring out strength in another. Mostly though it's about freedom and what it means to be free, the responsibility that comes with it. Time and again 47, the books "hero"gives up some chance or semblance of freedom from external forces because of an understanding of what freedom means spiritually. He finds it's no use being free if those he knows and loves are still slaves.

This is a heartfelt book with, apparently, links to a "slave" legend of a saviour called Long John who would resuce the slaves and return them to the bosom of mother Africa. Mosley has taken what was originally a fireside tale meant to momentarily cheer a lost people far from home and given it a resonance that speaks to more than blacks in this day and age. For all it's bleakness it's a book of hope and I look forward to the day when my daughter is old enough to read it herself.

essential X-Men vol 1

This is not something I would normally buy, I have to be honest. However, finding the first four essetial volumes in a charity shop for £2.50 each and a recent overpowering sense of nostalgia made them a bargain I couldn't resist. I have fond memories of reading these books in my mid teens and I was interested to see how they'd hold up today.

The first thing that comes to mind is if these had been published today the X-men would have been cancelled within the first year. Despite Dave Cockrum's stirling art, which looks incredible in black and white, The first year was at best mediocre and at worst awful. Giant Size X-Men #1 was well written by Len Wein and a good origin story, sketching out the characters and abilities of the leads. Chris Claremont arrived with issue 94, the frst New X-Men issue picking up from the old numbering, and the quality dipped rapidly. The villain, Count Nefaria is unimpressive, his animal henchmen are 3rd rate and it's only Thunderbird's death at the end of the two part story in issue #95 that has raised it to iconic level. The following issues featured a a dull mix of fantasy with stories about leprachauns, science fiction promises with the alien princess Lilandra's trip to Earth and her psychic intercourse with Charles Xavier and horror. Only the science fiction elements offered any real hint of what was to come. Any modern book taking this long to find it's feet would have been cancelled within it's first year but thankfully that didn't happen and Claremont was able to go on to produce some of the finest superhero comics available (at least until Alan Moore came along and rewrote the rulebook).

It wasn't until issue 107 that things started to really come together with the introduction of Corsair and his starjammers and the Imperial Guard, Dave Cockrum's answer to DC's Legion of Superheroes. At their best the X-Men are either epic tales or very small stories and this was the real start of their greatest epic, the Dark Phoenix saga. Issue #108 was John Byrne's first issue on the book that would make his name and gave us our first real glimpse of the Phoenix to come. Claremont by this time was hitting his stride and really getting to know his characters. He wasn't yet as wordy as he would become towards the end of his original run on the book and his partnership with John Byrne was bringing out the best in him as far as storytelling goes. People involved in the book at the time have defined Claremont and Byrne's relationship as fiery and perhaps that is what made the books so brimming with energy.

Strangely Byrne's artwork is the biggest disappointment. Although his backgrounds are lush and full his figure drawing is stiff and blocky, people looking like they've been cut by cookie cutters and dropped onto backgrounds they have no interaction with. Compared to Cockrum's fluid figurework and very individual character design Byrne comes off poorly.

At the end of the day though this is about the entire package, story and art, and the second half of this book features the start of one of the seminal runs on comics of the 70's and 80's.

Kampung Boy

I bought Kampung Boy, pretty much on spec, about six months ago and have wanted to review it since starting this site. Trouble is I can't find anything to add to the superlatives others have written about the book. Lat's writing is honest and affecting. His artwork is totally perfect for the material, tales of his boyhood, growing up in a tiny village in 50's Malaysia. Each page is one picture with text in a style somewhat similar to the British cartoonist Giles with a line quality like Charles Shulz and an energy to his work that brought to mind Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbs. Of course Lat's strength is that he is none of these people, he may bring them to mind as our brains reach for comparisons to put Lat in a compartment, but he is his own man, his own artist.

The story works like all good autobiography, picking key moments from a life and illustrating them honestly but lovingly. There's little else you can say about it except to recommend it whole heartedly.

The book is published by First Second, one of the best graphic novel publishers out there. They have a wonderful backlist of what can best be described as "literary" comics with people like Joan Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, Eddie Campbell and Derek Kirk Kim. Lat sits comfortably with this group as an equal in skill and ability, if not yet in terms of "fame" in the western comics world.

Just buy the book, it will cost you the price of four or five Marvel or DC books and will stay with you a helluva lot longer.

Echo # 1

Terry Moore. Along with Dave Sim and Jeff Smith, Moore is one of the holy trinity of self publishers from the 80's and 90's. There were other self publishers, but these three were the big stars and have all returned to the fray within months of each other. I enjoyed Rasl, I'm looking forward to Judenhasse and Glamourpuss. Echo though I was unsure about. Moore, more than any of the others, has been an artist I've had problems with. His Strangers in Paradise was a mishmash of genre fictions that never really gelled for me, it always seemed put together on the hoof with a minimal amount of preplanning.

Echo looks beautiful. Behind an awkward and badly posed cover is some of the most stylish black and white artwork to grace modern comics in a very long time. The nearest analogy would have to be Paul Chadwick's art on Concrete. Moore obviously holds a passel of illustrators among his influences although you'd be hard pushed to specify names based on his work.

The story is a different animal. Based on the first issue I expect to lose interest fairly quickly. The story so far is this; a woman wearing a scientific supersuit, a comicbook cliche, is blown out of the sky and disintegrated over a desert. The suit, now globules of cool, soft metal rains down on another woman, a photgrapher working in the desert. The suit, apparently, is some sort of bio-metal and clings to, then spreads over, the woman. The photographer is in the middle of a messy divorce, a fact explained by an answerphone message.

The writing is adequate but unexceptional and the story uncomfortably cliche ridden. Moore's supporters will probably tell you his writing will take his characters beyond these cliched beginnings (most fans of Strangers in Paradise will say it was the characters that were key to their enjoyment of that book more than the plot). Based on the first issue I can't see Moore gaining any new fans from this.