Chronic Review: Astro City - Through Open Doors

Scripts:    Kurt Busiek
Art:         Brent Anderson
Collects issues # 1-6 of the Vertigo series

I had never read an issue of Astro City before diving into Through Open Doors, which represents the 9th volume of the series.  This comic has always worn a badge of critical acclaim, but I've dodged it to this point because I'm generally not into analogues.  Why bother with a half-assed imitation of something when I can wait for a quality creative team to tackle the real thing? 

I do find exceptions to this line of thinking.  The Authority is worthwhile, and that makes no effort to disguise the fact that it's a Justice League commentary.  I really loved Danger Unlimited, and that's not even a commentary.  That was just John Byrne doing more Fantastic Four without the rights to the original property.

So when I started hearing podcasters and pundits talking about Astro City in special reverent tones, I decided that I would test drive the first volume when it got collected.  So here we are.

My quick capsule review is that Astro City is worthy of all the special reverent tones whispered about it.  Here's how it works and why it's a cut above your standard comics fare:

Astro City is Aptly Named

Every other comic on the rack is focused on a character or a group of characters.  Nothing wrong with that, by the way, I'm just stating the facts as they lay.  Astro City is about Astro City.  There are characters that tend to recur more than others, and characters more prominent than others.  That prominence is entirely determined by their importance to Astro City the community, however.

That approaches pushes the focus out into a web of interconnections instead of funneling it all into a specific person or a group.  It's a very different different style of writing and reading, it stands out, and pleasantly so.  Astro City is populated with a host of super-powered folks, and naturally those concerns tend to drive the plots.  It's hard to talk about Metropolis without mentioning Superman, right?  At that same time, Metropolis is much more than Superman.  Superman has no real purpose or meaning without the Jimmie Olson's to save.  Astro City is constructed in such a way that it can't forget that.  Ever.

So while Superman gets a requisite amount of panel time, (he's The Samaritan in Astro City, and Busiek plays him perfectly) three of the six issues in this paperback feature characters with no super powers at all.  The longest running plot in the arc consist of two issues spotlighting a call-center employee who feels she needs to atone for a call-routing mistake.

Your typical comic would flip Busiek's script and deal mostly with the Honor Guard mixing it up with the Skullcrushers.  The tip that brought them to the enemy base may not even get a mention.  Perhaps the call-center employee would receive a pat on the head for a panel.  In Astro City, the meat of the issue are a couple of victims of the Skullcrusher's violence and the call-center employee who feels responsible for their suffering.

Astro City exposes the "weakness" of most superhero comics by offering the reader more layers of the action.  The Big Two superhero books carve out the frosting off the cake, and it is sweet, to be sure.  Astro City lays out the full spread, and then holds the camera on the table until everyone is done eating and reminds you that somebody has to clean the table when the patrons are done.  Then it takes the camera back into the kitchen and shows you the cooks.

That's a different kind of storytelling.  You might be wondering if Astro City turns this back in on itself and becomes banal and dull.  Not at all

Astro City is Also a Mystery Cult

The A plot of the book is centered upon a set of doors in the sky hovering above the city.  Eventually a Celestial-type pops out of the doors and requests a liaison from the regular populace to teach him about the culture. Once the liaison gets the Celestial up to speed, more contact, sharing, and negotiating should follow.

Nobody is quite sure what to make of the situation, including the reader.  Not even the Samaritan seems to be a threat to the new Visitor, and that's a bit scary.  On the other hand, when he first appears the Celestial gets his volume wrong and has to fiddle with his Mother Box before continuing his speech.  So clearly this guy is not omnipotent!

These are the fun little touches that define a good or great series - the devil is always in the details.  This guy's power is not in question, so adding the foibles adds depth.  That character is very hard to pin down.  He seems mostly benevolent, but we never really have access to any conversations with his liason, (more on that situation in a bit) so its impossible right now to say what his intentions really are.  We have no clue what info he's actually getting from his assistant, or what the objectives are.

In the sixth issue, an Astro City mobster also negotiates his way behind those doors, and steals a Macguffin with potentially disastrous consequences.  It's hard to know how to interpret the Celestial's response to that development.  He may have set the whole thing up as a test, and it's a little creepy.  Who is this guy? What's the game plan?  What's he doing behind those doors with the liaison?  We don't know.  Yet.

But somebody might!  I haven't talked about the Broken Man yet, and he's integral.  Every now and again a purple-skinned man appears and talks directly to you.  He tells you what you're are and are not supposed to read and investigate in Astro City.  He tells you that there is something out there called an Oubor, and that he wants NO PART of it.  He chastises you for getting too nosey and potentially drawing the Oubor's gaze.  It's kinda trippy.

This purple person calls himself the Broken Man.  We learn some things about him (against his protestations) that make him a bit of an unreliable source.  And yet...maybe he knows more than anybody about what's going on.  The Broken Man appears to have psychically nudged Ben Pullam to volunteer to act as the Celestials liaison.  Possible so that the Oubur couldn't see him behind those doors.

The Broken Man seems to be the one choosing for us what elements of Astro City we are exposed to, all in a labyrinthine plot to....I don't know...save Astro City from the Oubur?  The vignettes seem random, but Busiek and the Broken Man are promising that these things are all folding in on each other.

The good news is that the "slice of life" stuff is so good, it almost doesn't matter if the Mystery Cult stuff pays off or not.  If it does pay off....this comic could enter legendary status.

Astro City Has a Ton of Great Characters

Astro City # 4 is one of the finest issues of a comic I've read this year.  Martha Sullivan was born a telekinetic, but she just doesn't have the will or temperament to be a crime-fighter.  In the space of a single issue, Busiek walks us through Sully's development as a person, and what life for a regular folk with super-powers might look like, including all the perks and dangers.

It really is remarkable how much character track gets laid in this one issue, and this is also probably a good entry-point to talk about Brent Anderson's art.  Astro City is built on wondering how the superhero phenomenon would operate in real life.  How would a JLA call center actually work?  What would a world of intermingling gods look like?  And the answer is that it would probably look exactly like Brent Anderson draws it.

Not every person with super powers would look like a model.  I think that the design and rendering Anderson creates is critical to buying into the world.  The Brent Anderson Martha Sullivan allows me to just fall in, because I feel like I know who that woman is, and it's pitch perfect.  That's a no-nonsense woman who has lived some life and has some Kathy Bates in her.  If you have to fight your way into believing in her, Busiek can't get where he wants to go.  So I think a good portion of the verisimilitude I attribute to Busiek is actually Anderson, and I just don't have the tools to consciously recognize that.

Anywho.  In the Astro City tradition, Martha gets a full back story, a chance to grow, and a resolution to her plot in the same issue.  You've got your steampunky Dame Progress, and the Cake Walker, who by all rights should be stupid and instantly rejected, but you can't.  Because somehow this creative team makes you believe it fits in this world, and it all just works.

Astro City is unapologetically a super hero comic, but it's an exceptionally layered and sophisticated one.  For those of you pining for something like James Robinson's Starman book, this is an excellent tonic.  I'm giving Astro City a strong recommendation.

Chronic Review:  And Then Emily Was Gone # 1
Comix Tribe

Script:     John Lees
Pencils:   Iain Laurie
Color:     Megan Wilson
Letters:   Colin Bell

Emily is a delightfully weird little horror comic.  The story is set in the Scottish isle of Merksay, and the boogeyman of the piece is a local spook named Bonnie Shaw.  When parents get jammed into a corner so bad there's no way out...ol' Bonnie Shaw will appear and offer them a solution.  All he asks for in exchange is the couple's child.

Emily tells her best friend Fiona that she know it sounds crazy, but she's seen Bonnie Shaw.  Emily is so convinced of this, she tells Fiona that she's leaving the island.  Meet me tonight, and we'll leave together, says Emily.

So Fiona shows up at the meeting place and waits for hours.  Nobody shows.  And then Emily was gone.

This is not the kind of story the police are likely to take seriously, at least not the regular police.  So Fiona visits Greg Hellinger, who used to be impossibly good at finding missing people.  That is, until he started seeing monsters everywhere.  Now he mostly huddles into his apartment without pants and tries to drink the monsters away.  He hasn't had a good night's sleep in five years, but you can see why Fiona might think Hellinger is useful.

And that's the crux of the hook.  It's one of those stories loaded with unreliable narrators, so you're never quite sure what to believe.  There are a couple keys to making a story like this work.  One is to build real characters around the madness - if the madness doesn't "pay off", it doesn't matter because the human element is enough to draw you in.  In my opinion, Emily neither excels nor fails at that element.

I would say that the leads of the story (Fiona and Hellinger) are fairly flat...but with some plusses.  Lees did not go over-the-top with Hellinger's character, thankfully.  He's clearly suffering from depression with a side of suicidal tendencies, but that's to be expected when you've been seeing monsters for five years.

Fiona shows some hints that there might be more than just a little girl lurking beneath the surface.  Very subtle hints.

Subtlety is the second element that a good "is there a supernatural element here or not?" story.requires.  Here, Emily does excel.  Emily is gone, so the only witness we have to the Bonnie Shaw part of the story is Fiona.  All of this could plausibly be in a couple people's heads.  Teenage girls run away all the time.  

Except.  We do get to meet Emily's parents... and something is definitely sideways with her father Gordon.  He's mumbling cryptic nothings fit for a psycopath, and he's building a box with ornate Cthulhian symbols on it in the basement.  There's something in that box that he needs to show his wife.  We'll get to see it next issue....

About the art.  We need to talk about the art.  I'm a bit of a cave man, so Iain Laurie's loose pencils don't do it for me.  My rigid perceptions prefer the glossy, illustrative style of a Jamie McElvie, where it looks like the pencil has been gliding across the page like Oksana Baiul.  Laurie's pencils look like they were scratched into the page with an awl.

The proportions are not true to life, (Fiona's eyes are usually right next to her ears) and most people in the book have very weird overbites.  Maybe it's an Orkney islands thing?  I don't know.  I think it's a funny Iain Laurie thing. The loose pencils are not a deal-breaker for me, and to be fair I don't think I'd want a Jamie McElvie drawing this story.  It's not about glamorous, super-hot, L.A. people.  It's about weird backwoods Scottish peasant people.  I don't know who I'd put on here.  Matt Wagner, maybe?  Yeah, he'd be good.

The point is that I'm a cave man, and you probably aren't, so you'll be fine. If you're a horror fan that found yourself enjoying movies like Insidious, Let the Right One in, or May, I think it very likely that you enjoy this comic.  This is not a gory monster comic.  We don't see Bonnie Shaw in this issue, and we may never see him.  That's perfectly fine, in my opinion.  The mystery/suspense elements shine, and that's more than enough for me.

I recommend the book, and really doubt your local comic shop ordered many (or any) of these.  If you want to see how the series turns out, ask your shop to order it for you, and use your Jedi mind powers to make them rack a few extra copies as well.  This comic deserves to be seen by more people. 

Rapid. Fire. Reviews.

I read a metric ton of comics worth talking about.  Because of the volume, I'm going to attempt efficiency.    When I start to go long....tell me to shut up!

The Auteur # 5.

HOLY SHIT.  I want to write many paragraphs on Auteur.  I may at some point.  For now, let me just sum it up thusly...this is the series of the year for me.  There are a few months for something to knock it off the King of the Mountain, but it would have to work awfully damn hard.

We talked about Auteur a couple of times on Chronic Insomnia, always in a positive light.  Auteur kinda dresses itself up as an untamed stallion - the spectacle is refreshing, but in the end it's hard to know what to do with pure chaos other than smile, clap, and move on.  Auteur is absolutely NOT a mad stallion, and it is not chaos.  I hesitate to use the "G" word, but I'm calling it a work of subversive genius. I think it's best to read Auteur and be surprised about what it's doing.  So for now, I'll say no more.

Black Market # 1

Black Market is not genius, but it is pretty entertaining.  It's also a very rare jewel in the comics scene - it does not bend the knee to the Bunny Briar.  The hook is that medicine has discovered a potential cure-all in the form of superhuman DNA.  Our POV characters are involved in extrapolating said DNA from said supers....whether they like it or not.  They incapacitate, capture, and violently rob DNA from largely innocent victims.  You understand why some of these regular folks would want to do that, but they're portrayed as total dicks.

The obvious parallel here is stem cell research...which would lend itself toward poking at the Religious Right.  That's not actually how the book operates, though.  It's functioning more as a bitch-slap to the lazier end of the 99%, believing they're owed something from the exceptional just cuz.  That makes it extra interesting to me, although I would have to say that stripped of the political score-keeping, Black Market is just middle-of-the-road in plot and character. 

Sinestro # 4

Echhh, what a waste.  I love Sinestro the character very much, and he spends a lot of time tripping over interesting things that are never properly explored.  As a small example...one of Sinestro's core elements is a fierce loyalty to all things Korugar.

So he's been introduced to a handful of his own people, once believed lost forever.  There's a lot to be mined from interacting with those folks and deciding what to do with them.  If you wanted to, you could really paint from the current Palestine/Israel canvas.  That would take giant brass testicles, so one might eschew that option and just add depth to the character by having him really get involved with these people's lives.  My point is that he just carries these people around like inanimate trophies.  There's plenty of juice there, but it's just ignored.

What we get instead is more nonsense about emotion colors and things that counter-act emotion colors, (still not clear when "willpower" became an emotion exactly, but I'm willing to let that go) and posturing, and an incredibly pedantic love/hate relationship with his Green Lantern daughter.  And look, next issue he talks to Hal! (The cover would have you believe this issue is about that.  It's not.  The cover is a liar head) Which admittedly will be far more entertaining than anything that's happened in the first four issues, but man.  Talk about going back to the whip a little too often.  This comic should be a lot better than it is.

Grimm Tales of Terror # 1

On the other end of the pool, here's a comic a lot better than it should be.  Zenescope gets a bad wrap for it's shameless cheese-cakery and empty contents.  I have dropped trow and pooped on these comics myself, mainly because I find the interiors of Zenescope books tend to pale when compared to the covers, and I generally find the stories to be empty calories.

I don't know if they're just putting their best foot forward for a new # 1 or if this comic is indicative of the current Zenescope, but I was delighted by Tales of Terror # 1.  The unnamed narrator may look like a giant whore on the cover, (we have to sell these things in a tough market, dig?) but inside she's dressed tastefully, speaks eloquently, and genuinely seems to have her shit together.

The story inside was competently executed on all counts.  They're updating classic horror stories the way they updated fairy tales in the flagship book.  This comic puts a fresh twist on Poe's "Telltale Heart", which in this case means blending it with Stephen King's "Boogeyman".  Are they re-inventing the wheel?  Probably not.  This played out like an above-average episode of Tales From the Darkside, and jinkies, I'm in for that as long as they'd like to publish it.

Weird Love # 2

Man, this book is great.  If you just can't tolerate one more second of the bullshit-dripping 21st Century and it's obsession with avoiding hurt feelings.... you MUST buy this comic.

Craig Yoe is pulling the most bizarre gems from the romance genre, much of it from the pre-code era.  The standout in this issue was absolutely "Too Fat For Love", which is exactly what you're thinking it's about, and even more awesome than you're hoping it is.  The ending is so absurd you just want to punch yourself in the face, and by the way, that's precisely what I want out of these comics.

In the horrifyingly stifled modern era, every one of these stories comes off as so fresh, unashamed, and honest.  I never want this to stop.

Armor Hunters # 1

I worry about Valiant now, and I was dreading this when I saw the solicitations.  I don't really want Events out of Valiant, I want them to continue to be Valiant.  That means the Events are born from the consequences of the rich characters and their decisions, not some impossibly obvious title that sounds suitably violent and action-packed. It smells like money-driven desperation from a distance.

Once I got a good close sniff, though, I was pretty much worried about nothing.  The Armor Hunters themselves are coming from a little out of left field and not from an established place, I guess, but that's no crime..  The hook is that galactically speaking, X-O armors are not neutral tools that can be used positively or negatively.  X-O armors are giant assholes that always end up taking over their hosts and ripping shit apart.  So the Armor Hunters are bad asses devoted to wiping these things out.

Needless to say, Aric is not going to buy into any of that, and he isn't going to just hand over his good skin.  That's way more than enough to hang a nice event on, and it does so while strengthening the X-O mythos in a new way.  I still worry about Valiant, because the sales aren't there.  The quality, though?  That has been remarkably consistent.

PS:  I bought a chromium cover for this issue, and I apologize for nothing. 

Devilers # 1 (Dyanamite)

Dynamite is clearly trying to re-make a piece of themselves in the image of Image with their new "creators unleashed" line.  That's not the worst idea in the world, actually.  I never really understood the licensing angle myself.  You're going to pay licensing fees on top of the creator costs and then sell 6,500 copies of Duke Nukem or whatever?  I don't know where the profit is hiding in that arrangement.  But I digress.

UPDATE:  I guess this is how you find the profit - you get yourself a pony license and then sell half a million "fun packs"

The Devilers are not a licensed property, but a bunch of new demon-hunters from the mind of Joshua Hale Fialkov.  Go, Creators Unleashed! The gist is that The Vatican cut a literal deal with The Devil to keep Hell out of earth.  Since The Devil is not really a reliable dude, he welshes on the arrangement and the expected sort of global level hijinx ensue.

I'm not in love with any of these characters yet, but the stakes are high, things are moving, and there might be a really good book in here somewhere.  I like the tone.  It's not quite as footloose as say, Buckaroo Banzai, but neither does it take itself too seriously.  That feels about right.  If the price point stays at $2.99, I might stick around to see if it's going somewhere.  These reviews are getting too long.  Doh!

Supreme: Blue Rose # 1

Lately I like to tout Fiona Staple's Alana as the sexiest woman in comics.  Turns out, that is incorrect.  Turns out, the sexiest woman in comics is actually Tula Lotay's Diana Dane.  That's not the reason to read this comic, but it certainly is a reason.

I had to catch up with Supreme on his wiki page in order to glean what I needed to get within 30 miles of whatever the fuck is going on here.  If that sounds unkind, let me be clear - I really, really enjoyed this issue.  It's simply not one of those vaunted "great jumping on points."  If you're familiar with the Supreme mythos, my assumption is that you'll find this a shockingly sophisticated, welcome addition.

PS:  Warren is back with a vengeance and taking different paths in his newer work.  You can still catch a strong scent of the old dialogue for sure, but also twists.  This Diana Dane voice....I don't believe we've gotten that from Warren yet.  I'm in for the series, and also glad that this isn't pretending to be an ongoing.  It's not pretending to be an ongoing, is it?  This should just be a wonderful little thing that lives on its own in one trade paperback.

Nightbreed # 3

I have a fondness for these characters, so I've been enjoying this a great deal.  If you don't know or care about Boone or Peloquin, I can't imagine you giving a shit about what goes on here.

On the plus side, one of the Midianites has a bunch of babies hatch from eggs, and the torch/pitchfork wielding yokels are given pause in their murderous intent when one of the babies begins reciting The Lord's Prayer.  Yikeez.  So I think on some level Clive Barker would be proud.

The Woods #3

A bunch of high school kids get spontaneously transported to an alien world.  They are given some non-verbal cues to enter this Thicket of Impending Doom.  A scant few do take on this challenge.  The rest retreat into the school and start recreating those old Stanford prison experiments.

If you thought you were going to like Morning Glories and then dropped it after 7 issues because it was just getting too deep and too convoluted...you might want to try out The Woods.  It has a lot of similar interests, but the path is far more straight, and the engine is moving more quickly.

Afterlife With Archie # 6

We take a break from Riverdale and catch up with Sabrina, who of course got the ol' gulag from her aunts when she resorted to dark sorcery.  So what's up with 'Brina these days?  Well, she's being constantly harried and pyschologically tortured by the most Cthhulhian agents of all - HP Lovecraft and Arthur Machen themselves!
 I won't ruin any more of the surprises in this comic, but they are big, and they are bold.  If the objective was to make me interested in the upcoming Sabrina series....mission accomplished.  Every time I think this series can't get better, it taps me on the shoulder and says

"Hey.  I'm better".

Then I smile and remark inwardly to myself

"I can't believe that Archie is actually producing this comic.  We are going to remember this for ages."

And that's a good thing.

Chronic Guest Review: Dotter Of Her Father's Eyes!

And now, may I present the Honorable Miracle Keith, who will be reviewing a very froofy text whilst engaging in as little actual froofery as possible.....

Review of Dotter Of Her Father’s Eyes

By Bryan & Mary Talbot

Published by Dark Horse

     There’s been a nearly endless amount of academic papers, biographies and even entire college courses devoted to author James Joyce; heck, my wife took a course covering just one book (Ulysees) and though she got a lot of enjoyment out of it, the book is so densely packed with ideas/allusions/cultural idioms that nobody can fully understand it but Joyce himself, and he’s kinda dead.  In this review, I’m not going to pretend like I’m some expert on Joyce (far from it).  I’m just going to bring you my reaction with the understanding that I’m a woefully uneducated, underachieving fan of the graphic novel art form.

   

  The book delivers the parallel stories of Mary Atherton/Lucia Joyce, both daughters of highly regarded but difficult men.  Joyce is raised in the shadow of her father’s literary fame during the roaring 1920s/30s in Europe, while Atherton is raised in middle class Britain of the ‘50s/’60s.  The book opens with Mar’s seemingly innocuous discovery of an old passport photo, setting up the framing sequence and beginning the tales of two iives in flashback.  In Mary’s case, her father was renowned Joycean scholar James Atherton, an Englishman who rules over his daughter’s life with an iron hand.  A perfectionist who dictates his daughter’s every academic step, his brief displays of affection are entirely conditional; her very existence seems to annoy and anger him.  The Joyce family is modestly wealthy but itinerant.  Lucia falls in love with dancing as a little girl, but James Joyce is an easily distracted, somewhat indifferent father and his wife Nora is an emotionally abusive mother, who vocally dislikes her daughter’s greatest dreams of becoming a professional dancer/dance instructor.

   

  The artwork changes as the story jumps from Mary’s life to Lucia’s – the former is done in Talbot’s beautiful, modestly detailed style;  lightly colored, elegant drawings that add a deeper layer of tragedy to the more violent scenes of child abuse.  Lucia’s life is illustrated in deep blue-washed ink and watercolor; an appropriate contrast between the biographical/autobiographical stories (and by the time Lucia’s story concludes, the color blue seems most appropriate -those who know about Lucia’s fate can attest).

     If I have one complaint about this book, it’s fairly small: the dialogue spoken by the Joyce family is sometimes over-expository.  Obviously, there’s a great deal of historical record about what Joyce did and his novels are still in print; however, the way his daughter spoke is not documented, so the writer (Mary) is left to make up her dialogue with a “best guess”, which unfortunately contains a lot of gems like:

Lucia:  Margaret Morris is on at the Comedie!  Oh, Babbo, let’s go and see her!

James Joyce:  Oh, you mean William Morris’s granddaughter?  Didn’t she marry a Scotsman?  That Fauvist fellow I used to know, Fergusson.

Lucia:  How should I know?  She’s an expressive dancer – she’s famous!

Yikes.  There’s no easy way to get around that dilemma, and it ends up being this book’s only flaw.  The scenes with Mary and her father are excellent, brief scenes of tension and sometimes terror, as she negotiates her life under the control of her asshole father.

 Talbot is a highly underrated illustrator in the comics industry, though he has worked on high profile titles like Sandman and Fables.  I would personally recommend his graphic novel The Tale of One Bad Rat (also published by Dark Horse), with the caution that its plot does involve child sexual abuse (no graphic depcitions, but still…).

All in all, this is a recommended work for those who need a break from the tights n’ capes variety of story.  An excellent reminder of the power of the comic book medium and an emotionally charged examination of what it means to live with both an artist of great insight into the human condition (but woefully little compassion for the real people in his life) and an academic who writes critically lauded analysis of said artist’s works (also unable to love unconditionally).

- Miracle Keith