Listen to the interview now by clicking this link right here!

***

It was a crap morning.  Cold rain and fog.  The roads and sidewalks were slick with leaves and puddles.  Cars haunted side streets at half speed, their drivers wiping at the windows from within, bleary eyes squinting out.

It was unequivocal inclemency of the highest order. The natural world’s embodiment of the emotional turmoil at the core of your average Mogwai tune.

It could have been an autumn morning in any bitter and inhospitable city in the world.  Could have been Bogata, Edinburgh, Jakarta or Vladivostok.

As luck would have it the drab and impenetrable city in question was Vancouver and I would have to go out into it if I wanted to get this interview with Ian Rankin.

I’d be lying if I said that the idea didn’t briefly cross my mind.

After the requisite caffeine injections and foggy mutterings I made it to the CJSF station HQ and let myself into the empty confines.  Peace and quiet and warmth.  And time to gather my energies before making the call to Toronto where Mr Rankin was participating in IFOA XXX and their special showcasing of Scottish writers and Canadian writers of Scottish descent.

No problem.  Smooth sailing from here.  Should be.

I got the mixing board all warmed, lit up and functional.  The digital patch connecting the old touch tone phone to the outside world checked out but the computer with the mixing program was locked by a password that I did not have.  It was 730 in the morning and the only numbers that I had were for people who happened to be out of town.

It was grim but eventually I hacked into the machine, made the call to Ian’s hotel room and got the interview up on the rails.

I’d forgotten my notes in the other room during my frenzy to figure out how I was going to crack the password into the computer and now I was improvising wildly to Mr Rankin as we began to talk about the similarities between Scotland and Canada and their shared proximity to proverbial cultural elephants to their geographic south.

From there we talked about James Kelman and boy wizards, Margaret Atwood, the Proclaimers, Mogwai and Jackie Leven, shopping for vinyl records, travelling by train across Canada, return visits to the toy shop on Granville Island, John Rebus, Malcom Fox, reality gameshows broadcast in hell and despairing wives.

An excellent time had by all and topped off by a blistering track from the new Mogwai album, Hawk is Howling.

Many thanks to Ian Rankin and the good people at Orion Books/McArthur Canada and Random House/DC/Vertigo for making it happen.

The latest Felix Castor novel (for US audiences at least) is an enjoyable supernatural mystery, albeit one that doesn’t offer much that’s new to the series.  ”Fix” Castor is a freelance exorcist in a world in which ghosts, zombies, and werewolves have become fairly routine.  He’s also clearly modeled off of John Constantine, a character that Mike Carey wrote for years previously.  And I pretty much view this series as the stories he wasn’t able or allowed to tell while writing for Hellblazer.

This time around Castor is dragged into 3 cases at once.  First he’s investigating the sudden suicide of a colleague who had been working on the case of his career.  Then there’s the mater of a man on trial for murder whose claiming he was possessed at the time of the crime.  And in the background Castor has to fight to protect a demon possessed friend from becoming a paranormal lab rat.  

The multiple plot threads are all fairly strong but ultimately they don’t hold together quite as strongly as I would like.  Dead Men’s Boots makes for a decent perpetuation of the series, but Carey is definitely capable of better.

Etter suksesser som 100 Bullets og Criminal lanserer DC Comics nå underbruket Vertigo Crime. Først ut er tegneseriekrimromaner som Brian Azzarellos Filthy Rich og Ian Rankins Hellblazer-historie Dark Entries. Forrige forsøk, etiketten Paradox Press, ga oss Road To Perdition og A History of Violence.

Ikke overraskende er det Brian Azzarello og Hellblazer som fronter den nye satsingen. Førstnevnte revitaliserte krimtegneserien med 100 Bullets, og Filthy Rich blurbes nå av åndsfellen George Pelecanos. Og den okkulte privatdetektiven John Constantine, alias Hellblazer, har vært en viktig figur for Vertigo helt siden han trillet ut av huet til Alan Moore på 1980-tallet. I Dark Entries får krimforfatteren Ian Rankin muligheten til å boltre seg i Constantines skyggefulle verden.

I dette intervjuet forteller Vertigo-sjef Karen Berger mer om satsingen, mens jeg benytter anledningen til å legge ut min 1998-artikkel om det forrige forsøket på å lage et eget hjem for DCs krimserier, Paradox Press. Legg merke til spådommen “dette kunne like gjerne vært filmmanus i rå form”, to av disse fire seriene endte opp som Hollywood-suksesser.

Max Allan Collins og Richard Piers Rayner
Road To Perdition
Paradox Press/DC Comics

Tom De Haven og Robin Smith
Green Candles
Paradox Press/DC Comics

John Wagner, Alan Grant og Robin Smith
The Bogie Man
Paradox Press/DC Comics

John Wagner og Vincent Locke
A History Of Violence
Paradox Press/DC Comics

Forlaget Paradox har sluppet amerikanske forfattere på frifot i tegneserien. Resultatet er underholdende, men vent ikke stor seriekunst.
Hver frittstående historie rommer 300 sider med hardkokt action, fortalt i en cinematisk fortellerform. Dette kunne like gjerne vært filmmanus i rå form; historiene er mindre sentimentale, mer uforutsigbare og overraskende enn gjengs Hollywood-film.

Road To Perdition er en kald historie med basis i virkelige hendelser fra Chicago på 1930-tallet. Familiefaren Michael O’Sullivan tjener sitt daglige brød som leiemorder for mafiaen, men den dagen hans unge sønn er vitne til noen brutale mord, vender O’Sullivans oppdragsgivere seg mot ham. Serien er skrevet av Max Allan Collins, som har to eksemplarer av den amerikanske krimprisen Shamus i hylla. Tegner Richard Piers Rayner hever historien kraftig med sine gjennomførte tegninger fra depresjonens USA.

Tom De Haven har tidligere skrevet kultromaner som Freak’s Amour og Jersey Luck. Green Candles er hans første tegneserieforsøk; en ganske ordinær, men underholdende, psykologisk thriller.

Selv om prosaforfatterne klarer seg dugelig må det noen garvede serieveteraner til for å bevise tegneseriens muligheter og idérikdom. The Bogie Man er en uhyre morsom parodi på hardkokt krim, ført i pennen av John Wagner og Alan Grant, som blant annet står bak utallige historier med Judge Dredd og Batman. The Bogie Man er en skotsk mentalpasient som tror han er, og ser ut som, Humphrey Bogart. Hylende morsomt, og umulig å gjennomføre i noe annet medium enn tegneserien.

Wagners svært lite muntre, men spennende, A History Of Violence, anbefales også.

Og her kan du lese min store artikkel om krimtegneserier. “Anbefales,” sa han ubskjedent. Og til sist, her er min anmeldelse av den norske oversettelsen av Road To Perdition fra Juul Forlag.

Max Allan Collins og Richard Piers Rayner
Veien til Perdition
Juul Forlag
5/6

Tegneserien bak storfilmen Road To Perdition byr på bedre underholdning.
Michael O’Sullivan er Looney-bandens trofaste håndlanger og bøddel i Rock Island, USA på 1930-tallet. Men da Looney-familien vender seg mot ham og myrder hans kone og yngste sønn tar «Dødsengelen» en grusom hevn – med sin unge sønn ved sin side.

Den garvede krimforfatteren Max Allan Collins tar utgangspunkt i et klassisk hevnmotiv i den nesten 300 sider lange tegneserien Road To Perdition – et moralsk drama om en mann som tror han kan holde sin voldelige og kriminelle hverdag atskilt fra et normalt familieliv.

Når virkeligheten innhenter ham og familien, legger det grunnlaget for et voldsomt bandeoppgjør i gangstertidens USA – og Collins låner tematikk og fortellerstil fra asiatisk actionfilm og den japanske samuraiserien Lone Wolf and Cub for å fortelle O’Sullivans historie. For Road To Perdition er preget av den samme vekslingen mellom poetisk rolige, nærmest stillestående scener og bloddryppende actionsekvenser som japanske dramaer av samme art.

Og at dette har endt opp som film er overhodet ikke overraskende, for Collins’ ordknappe og dialogbaserte manus lar Richard Piers Rayners strek bære ansvaret for mye av fortellingen, og serien er nærmest som å lese et ferdig «storyboard» til en film.

Regissør Sam Mendes har holdt seg ganske tro til originalhistorien i filmatiseringen, men flere forenklinger er ikke til å unngå – samtidig som filmen er langt mer stillestående og actionløs enn tegneseriens mer fortettede drama. Og personlig synes jeg ikke Tom Hanks klarer å gi liv til den tause og nådeløst brutale, men i bunn forvirrede og ulykkelige O’Sullivan.

Utgiver Juul Forlag fortjener også skryt. At ingen større forlag tør å ta sjansen på en serie med slike åpenbare kvaliteter og kommersiell appell som Road To Perdition er dessverre ikke lenger overraskende i det norske serieklimaet. Men så kommer dette nystartede forlaget. med fagbøker om fiskeri og akvakultur som hovedområde, plutselig med en lekker utgave av serien i stive permer og fint papir. Ser en bort fra noen små språklige blødmer i oversettelsen er dette faktisk lekrere enn den amerikanske originalen.

Léo e eu conversando sobre um episódio de Millenium (especial de Halloween) em que o sr. Black, ainda criança, tinha seu primeiro vislumbre do que estava por vir.

num sótão escuro, um homem com barba por fazer, fumando como uma máquina a vapor, conta uma história. subentendido: trata-se de uma criatura de outra esfera.

junte-se a isso a leitura, anos antes, de Guaita (sobre Jacques de Molay e o julgamento dos templários) e, presto!, surge Lúcio, protagonista de ‘a continuidade do fogo’, ‘escaldado no fogo do inferno’ e ‘heróis’.

a predominância do ‘fogo’ dá o tom.

Lúcio é meu dublê de Constantine?

With Darick Robertson to return only on the next issue (although his covers have been excellent as usual), “The Boys” continues to be a very well-written, but visually problematic ongoing. The two artists chosen to be Robertson’s replacement, John McCrea and Carlos Ezquerra, are both competent in their respective fields, but unsuited for this story. And in this issue, Ezquerra — and his inker Hector Ezquerra — do a especially underwhelming job.

Garth Ennis, though, is in complete control of the story he’s telling, and I like the way Billy Butcher uses a “World War II” strategy to fight Stormfront. The reinforcements they had called on the previous issue are not a new character, like I had thought, but an old one I quite like and was happy to see again. And now, apparently, “the man from Vought-American” seems to be in charge of Vought-American, which puts things under a whole new light.

As usual, it’s Hughie that’s given the most attention, as he grows more and more uncomfortable with his job — something he says to the bed-ridden, comatose female for lack of any other ear. And the way Ennis ends this confession is intelligent and hilarious in its irony. The dialogue, as usual, comes off very natural without losing its cleverness, and Ennis leaves little unanswered bits for the next issues, as he usually does.

But Ezquerra’s artwork diminishes his efforts. His Billy Butcher looks nowhere near the “knowing smile” version Darick Robertson and, to an extent, John McCrea can do. In fact, his Billy Butcher looks an awful lot like Kev, from “The Authority”, another (excellent) Ennis character. But it’s not just character likeness and facial expressions that Ezquerra gets wrong (the latter by drawing eyes almost completely shut at any given time, making it look like all the characters are squinting for no reason), but also, and especially, one of his strengths — visual storytelling. Ezquerra doesn’t even bother to divide action scenes in panels, drawing the characters in several poses across the page in a sloppy, lazy way that represents a problem for letterer Simon Bowland — especially on the panel where a dialogue balloon comes from off-panel, but, with no panel divisions, Bowland is forced to make the balloon’s tail go off the right of the page, on the complete opposite direction the voice is supposed to be coming from — since the proper direction doesn’t have a line to indicate the end of the panel. Or, more accurately, there are no fucking panels. In fact, Ezquerra completely forgets to add bruises and wounds to The Boys after the fight (except for bandages, and if he forgot THAT I’d think he’d hit his head somewhere), forcing colorist Tony Avina to do everything himself.

Fortunately, on the next issue, Robertson is returning from his vacation in Hawaii to this ongoing and should get it back to its high visual standards. Fortunately, the writing standards continue to be as high as they always were, with Billy Butcher having a quick conversation with Mother’s Milk that opens up a very good question.

And, by the way, next issue is M. M.’s origin. I’ve been looking forward to that one.

“Dark Entries” is a graphic novel — or, as the cover says, a graphic mystery, which could perhaps refer to the artwork, but Dell’edera’s visual narrative isn’t that bad — by Ian Rankin. In it, John Constantine is tasked with finding out why a “haunted house reality show” called Dark Entries is scaring its participants not with special effects, but, apparently, by accident — the house itself seems to have gotten a mind of its own. And eventually, Constantine participates in the show himself.

That right there is one of the novel’s main, and many, problems. Constantine accepts this far too easily. And very stupidly. A man with his experience would never go so far into an investigation, essentially putting himself into a potential trap, without knowing what’s wrong. And yet he does, and the novel starts going crazier and crazier and relying too heavily on its own distorted mythology (like a broken chain of events that doesn’t allow some characters to go through a TV — yeah, if this sounds out-of-context to you now, sorry, but it still sounds ridiculous after hundreds of pages building up to it).

The twists in the story are hardly original — which in itself is not a problem if they’re well-executed and coherent. They aren’t. In fact, they weaken the novel, giving it a “camp” feel. Rankin’s depiction of Hell is especially ridiculous, and so is the addition of a villain in the third act of the story.

John’s relationship with the reality show participants is equally problematic, going from hostile to easy to hostile again, and then John bangs one of them, they casually enter their bedroom and act like nothing’s wrong despite them being half-naked on the bed. Simply put, it’s sloppy, unconvincing writing. Rankin is more interested in unveiling the story’s internal mythology rather than giving his characters coherence — despite John being just one of them in their eyes, they still bend over to whatever he has to say far too easily without dissenting actions or opinions.

Werther Dell’edera’s art is as bureaucratic as the writing. The visual storytelling is uninspired and even unclear at times, and his characters don’t have a lot for us to tell them apart. It’s such boring, simple artwork I find myself at a loss for anything else to say about it. So I won’t. At least, Clem Robins’ lettering is as efficient as it always is — fortunately, the letterer doesn’t try to create a different kind of caption for every character (a narrative resource Rankin overuses), since this could be even more confusing, so he keeps everything simple and with his typically beautiful font.

Overdone and extremely camp on its third act and ending underwhelmingly, “Dark Entries” is a story that portrays John Constantine’s world as being far lighter and easier than it really is, and the aforementioned “camp” feel is unsuited to the character, to use an euphemism. It reads like the first draft of a potentially good tale that should have been more haunting and well-planned.

It’s been said elsewhere but it bares repeating, Dark Entries marks the low point in publisher marketing this year.  A little history is needed for this.  A few years back when Denise Mina was writing Hellblazer she managed to connect Vertigo with her friend, bestselling writer Ian Rankin.  Before too long word started to leak out of Rankin writing the book.  Then Vertigo started thinking of launching a line of crime books, and with Rankin already commissioned to write for them it made sense to launch the line on his name (which appears in a font roughly 5 times the size of the title).

The only problem, THIS ISN”T A CRIME COMIC!!!!!  It’s not even much of a mystery, despite the god awful “graphic mystery” logo on the cover.  Also worth noting, the title of this book comes from the name of a reality show that is central to the plot, however the plot description calls that same show “Haunted Mansion”.  Nice to see that people are paying attention.

OK, enough with the rant, what about the book itself.  It’s a pretty routine Constantine story.  There’s a haunted house, a damsel or two he fails to save, a few demons, and a lot of British snark.  Rankin also performs admirably for a first time comics writer.

The art from Werther Dell’edera suits the material well, but suffers at the begining because I’m guessing the first 40 pages or so were originally intended for the ongoing series.  There are pretty clear chapter breaks, and the art feels like it was inteded to be colored (later in the book the pages gain a lot more detail).

So, this is a pretty good Hellblazer comic and it seems better suited to a graphic novel format than it did a serial.  However, if you buy this expecting an Ian Rankin mystery you’re going to be very disappointed.

Along with Brian Azzarello’s Filthy Rich, also released this past week, Dark Entries marks the launch of the Vertigo Crime line of comics.  Rather than collecting monthly issues into a trade and calling it a graphic novel, entries in the Vertigo Crime line will be a single story released in novel form.  And while Azzarello’s Filthy Rich is noir by a master of the form in comics, Dark Entries is a John Constantine story by an internationally acclaimed novelist, meant to draw an audience.

Unfortunately, they didn’t pick the strongest title to do so, instead going for name recognition.  Dark Entries is by no means a bad book – Rankin’s story is an engaging twist on the haunted house scenario, and he has the character of John Constantine down surprisingly well.  It’s a fun, slight story that isn’t helped by the fact that, for all his acclaim as a novelist, Rankin is quite new at writing comics.  The dialogue is occasionally extremely clunky, and the social commentary is heavy handed at best.

Dell’edera fares better on art.  Shadows are used quite expressively throughout, the characters are all distinct and recognizable, and the pages of the book actually shift from a white background to black to signify a major plot twist.  All-in-all, Dell-edera’s art is stylish and suitable, and while it isn’t flashy enough to stand out, it gets the job done quite well.  

Despite some heavy-handedness, Dark Entries is a relatively solid book.  It’s hardly the best Constantine story you can find, and I suspect it’s far from the best Rankin book you can find, either, but fans of the character shouldn’t leave too disappointed, and it’s more than stand-alone enough to draw in new fans.  Fun and just a little creepy, with a hard edge of cynicism and a dark twist, Dark Entries suggests that the Vertigo Crime line might one day be something impressive, if it gets over a few initial speed-bumps.

Grade: B

- Cal Cleary

Read/RANT

“What god do you pursue in cities?
Do you see him, briefly, from inside a moving tram?

There – is that his name, those spray paint letters?
Is that him, broken, crazy, speaking tongues?

There, is that him? Can you demonstrate?
Can you mouth or call his unsaid name?“¹

I recently picked up a copy of Jason Louv’s excellent Generation Hex², which I could not recommend enough.  It was packed with inspirations and ideas, gut-written articles which left me reeling and my pad filled with fevered notes.  I read it, reread it, and still pick through it regularly for half-remembered morsels.  It deserves a scintillating review – which I will sadly not accord it in this article, but which you can find on Hedge’s BookMyrk blog.

I want to talk about Stephen Grasso, English hoodoo and dérive.

You see, amidst the nuggets of Louv’s compilation were three articles by Mr.  Grasso:
Learning to Open to Haunted Kaleidoscope,
Beneath the Pavement, the Beast, and
Dreams of a Midwhich Planet.

I finished every one with the same wrenching disappointment I felt when I turned the last page of The Discovery of Heaven, knowing that it was over and there was no more of it to read.  I love the man’s style, I love his ideas and I love his sweat-and-grime perception of our world.  I have no idea why, but I find it hard to imagine the man working through the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram.  This, particularly after reading Dreams of a Midwhich Planet.

In Beneath the Pavement, the Beast (the bulk of which you can find in his online article The Drift), Grasso talks about “Dérive” as a cross between a spirit walk and a scavenger hunt.  As I read it, morsels of Robert Archambeau’s Citation Suite kept popping into my head, along with a piece of dialogue between John Constantine and London in Gaiman’s Sandman : Preludes and Nocturnes.

“Hullo London.”
“Hullo John Constantine.”
“How are you then, London?”
“All right.  Full of people.  Raining.  You?” ³

I have a sort of hang-around-and-hope-it’ll-come-over-and-speak-to-me teenage crush on urban magic, you see, and I absolutely adore the concept of a dialogue between a magus and a city.

More to the point, I love the idea of treating an urban environment as a medium of communication with the invisible world (and no, I still haven’t read the Invisibles, it’s because I suck, okay?).  So I more or less had to investigate this new idea.

I’m quite picky about the components that I use for my spells, and I have been looking for a few pieces for almost a year now.  Since Grasso’s article specifically suggests the use of Dérive as a means of finding ingredients, a scavenger hunt seemed like a good basis for my experiment.

I noticed a long time ago that my projects tend to take shape at their conception, long before any actual work is done, and this was no different : once I had reread the few articles I had found on Dérive, and resolved to do the deed in the morning, I headed out for a spot of dinner and immediately noticed several posters for flea markets and Signs which seemed to be pointing me in a specific direction.

(Since I generally find that these Signs and omens are rather subjective and inexplicable, I won’t bore you with their specific form, merely the impressions which they left me with).

In the morning, having resolved to get up early to avoid excessive pedestrian traffic, I slept straight through my alarm and finally woke up around 11am.  I filled an old cough-medicine bottle with old spiced rum and a chewing gum bottle with scented rice, made a list of the pieces I was despairing of ever hunting down, among them:

• An antique gold-leafed picture frame,
• A tall metal oriental lantern,
• An old-style bicycle dynamo,
• Two matching ceramic jars, and
• A set of six Matryoshak dolls.

…and marched out into the city streets in the direction which I was drawn to the day before.

I walked past several busy crossroads with the gut-clenching fear that I might spot a Sign forcing me to embarrass myself in front of a score of middle-aged weekenders, but eventually rounded on a quiet crossroad which thankfully reminded me strongly of the stories of Papa Legba (thank you for that mercy, old man).

So it was under the gently frowning gaze of a handful of patient old pensioners that I muttered my respects to Papa Legba, Yog-sothoth and Ganesha, pouring first the scented rice, then the old rum onto the tarmac and petitioning their assistance…

…then, as I started looking around for my first clue, my mobile vibrates its crazy little dance and a girlfriend reminds me we were going to have breakfast together.  I haven’t forgotten, have I?  Well of course I have, but don’t try to explain that my date with a crippled old saint is more important than a Latte in the sun.

I tell her where I am, hang up and go back to looking around – determined to make something of this experiment against all odds.

I follow graffiti and posters and lettering on old vans, stand between two mirroring graffitis until a car howls in outrage, spend several minutes staring into a bin, pick up a handful of rusty screws and leave them elsewhere, watch people behaving strangely and jump out of my skin when my friend meets up with me…  my wanderings have taken me into her path, despite the fact that I started in completely the wrong direction.

I take this as a good sign and smile when she asks me how the hell I knew which way she was coming.

We walk into town and she takes me along a series of roads and alleys I have never used before, throughout which I carry the same tingling sensation that always assails me when I am working on a project.  We have breakfast, chat for a few hours, and resolve to visit one of the nearby flea markets… things are looking good, actually.

Over the course of a few hours, I find a set of heavy old dynamos stamped 1943, a dusty old lantern on which half the work I planned has already been done, and an antique gold frame for which the dealer asks the usual completely-reasonable-but-utterly-out-of-my-league price but, after a few minutes of weather-talk, inexplicably drops the price to peanuts and wraps it up for me…

No luck on the dolls or the jars, but they also happen to be the items I have been hunting for the least period of time, so perhaps the city decided to help me out with the tough stuff.  My treasures are carefully wrapped, vibrating with potential.

I’m stunned into a contemplative silence.

On my way back home, I drop by the crossroad and walk around it 4 time, voicing my thanks far clearer than the morning’s muttered words.  The rice and rum are gone, cleaned away by the midday showers, I suppose.  I look like a complete idiot, but these guys have been good to me, they deserve a little sacrificed dignity.

In a few days, I’ll start cleaning the pieces, buying the paints and mundane ingredients that I need to turn my concept into something meaningful.

The overall experience was quite intriguing.

I felt the buzz of active magical work throughout the day, catching glimpses of words and images and performing all manner of nonsensical actions which just seemed right.  I still feel much more in tune with it all now than I did a few days ago, and I suspect I will perform a slightly more aimless Dérive later, to get in touch with my city…  find out if it needs anything from me.

It’s only fair, afterall.

     In the comic book world, there are few comic books revered more than Neil Gaiman’s modern epic, The Sandman.  This work is one of the things that secured Gaiman a place as one of the greatest comic book writers of all time.  It all began when he was approached to write a brand new Sandman series with no ties to characters who previously bore the name, like Wesley Dodds.  Eventually, his mind wove a grand tapestry of a story, all revolving around a being called Dream, otherwise known as Morpheus or the Sandman.  This being was and is the embodiment, the essence of dreams, which also extends to a person’s personal dreams or life goals, as well as stories.  He is one of the Endless, seven siblings who each are embodiments of similar concepts.  His other six siblings are Destiny, Death, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium, formerly Delight.  Each of these beings also supervise their respective concepts, like Death appearing before people to take them as they die. 

     Dream was always a rather dreary, self-important, stuffy person.  However, he is imprisoned by a human who seeks to harness his power for well over fifty years.  He manages to escape, but his realm, the Dreaming, has suffered greatly in this time.  There have been problems with sleep all across the mortal world, and his totems have been scattered everywhere.  Over the course of the story, Dream recovers these items and, having begun to change during his imprisonment, solves old problems with lovers, friends, and family and deals with some of his own actions from the past.  It is a dangerous road that does not end well for him, but he is no longer the person he once was.  He is still stuffy and difficult to like, but less so, and as such, he is willing to do things that he never did before, even if it means his own death.  Over the course of his wanderings, he meets many interesting people, including some popular DC characters, like Martian Manhunter and John Constantine, as well as a vast number of mythological figures, like Odin, Loki, Oberon, and Puck, historical figures like William Shakespeare (Shakespeare wrote a Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Tempest for Dream), and humans like Hob Gadling and Rose Walker.  Of the Endless, he also spends much time with Death, with whom he is closest.  Death is the breakout character of the book because of her oddly likable personality, so much so that she has had two spin-off miniseries.

     Every time you read Sandman, you can’t help but feel like you’re reading a novel that just happens to have pictures.  Neil Gaiman utilizes so many allusions in such an authoritative manner that it feels too complex to be just a comic book.  And yet, there are DC superheroes and villains.  Since this was a Vertigo series, it is unclear as to what place it occupies in DC canon.  Still, the effects that it had on Dr. Destiny and the Hall family, including Hector Hall, Lyta Hall, and Daniel Hall, are still in place.  If I had my way, all of this would be canon.  Few DC stories, Vertigo or otherwise, are so wonderful.  The characters are absolutely lovable.  If they are not, as Dream sometimes is, they are so fascinating that you want to read more about them anyway.  The plot is confusing at times, but highly compelling, and there are tons of twists and turns that will leave you begging for more.  Dave McKean’s unorthodox covers capture the surreality of the series perfectly as well.  I’ll admit, I wasn’t fond of them at first, but they grow on you.  Aside from McKean, there was never really a truly consistent artist for the series.  However, people who worked on it include Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, and Marc Hempel.  If you are looking for an extremely cerebral story that you will remember and love forever, this is a comic book that is worth your time.  You can still get all of it in trade paperback, since people still want to read it.

Plot: 9.7      Art: 9.4      Dialogue: 9.7      Overall: 9.7

La banda de rock colombiana Tres de Corazón hizo un cover de la canción “Papapa”, del grupo de rock chileno Los Prisioneros. En el videoclip del cover se puede ver una historia sobre un niño y una niña que entran a una casa abandonada, y encuentran dentro de ésta al fantasma de un niño fallecido. Al final de la historia, resulta que todo lo que el espíritu del niño muerto necesitaba para descansar en paz, era simplemente un abrazo. Este final es muy parecido al desenlace de “Hug Me”, cómic escrito por Neil Gaiman e ilustrado por Dave McKean, publicado por primera vez en Hellblazer #27 (marzo 1.990) y más tarde republicado en el tomo “Neil Gaiman’s Midnight Days”.

Pueden ver las últimas 5 páginas del cómic a continuación (las imágenes corresponden a la primera edición en español del relato, publicada en España en enero de 1.991 por Ediciones Zinco, en Hellblazer #5; años después el cómic sería nuevamente publicado en España, en el tomo “Neil Gaiman: Días de Medianoche”, editado por Norma Editorial):

Además, en un punto del videoclip, los niños encuentran una hoja de periódico en la que puede leerse un titular que dice “Niño muere abrazado a su madre”. Debajo del titular aparece una fotografía, en la cual se puede ver nada menos que a Alan Moore, creador de John Constantine, el protagonista de la serie Hellblazer (el rostro de Moore puede verse con claridad cuando el videoclip cumple dos minutos de reproducción).

¿Se supone que Moore está relacionado con la muerte del niño? ¿Acaso Moore es responsable de su muerte?

Y a propósito de Moore, Jacko, el fantasma de “Hug Me”, se parece algo a él ¿No?

Something that I noticed from the get go with this book, is that it feels inherently British. I am aware this is probably because Ennis is British but we get the use of and spelling of British swear words, as well as being based many in Britain and Ireland. The colours used in this book are brilliant as they work exceptionally well with the dialogue and the style of the piece. Often dark, grungy colours, they show in my opinion the emotions that Constantine is feeling. The scenes with Matt (the ageing cancer victim) are done beautifully. The white with a bluish tint really gives the feel of a hospital, almost able to taste the clinical cleanliness as well as feel the anguish that the characters do over the problems that they face. This again can be seen when Constantine slits his wrists to beat death. The background is a dark red, symbolic of the blood that Constantine has spilled. In my opinion, Hellblazer is a great start to Vertigo that allowed Ennis to move onto such seminal works as Preacher as he now had a mantle in the US to sing from.

In my opinion this is superior to Preacher and a great way to get people into Vertigo

Para começar, como havia”prometido”, os links para download de Lúcifer e Hellblazer:

Hellblazer, nº01 ao nº125:

clique aqui

Lúcifer, nº 01 ao nº75

clique aqui

(Valeu Vertigem!)

Agora, dando continuidade ao post iniciado aqui

Bem, quem conhece o cenário indie de quadrinhos? Assim como o cinema, a música, o “estilo”, há também hqs indies e alternativas, como “Epiléptico“, “Scott Pilgrim“, “5“, “10 pãezinhos“, “Mesmo Delivery“, entre outras hqs independentes.

Uma que pretendo falar é a mini-série em pb, Demo:

Escrita por Brian Wood, que é, entre outras coisas, colaborador da Rockstar Games (ele que desenha as capas e imagens da série GTA) e “criador” da série DMZ do selo Vertigo da DC Comics. As ilutrações, tanto das capas como do interior, são de Becky Cloonan, que entre seus projetos estão a arte de American Virgin e o “encontro” 5, junto comVasilis Lolos e os brasileiros Rafael Grampá e os gêmeos, Gabriel Bá e Fábio Moon.

O que importa é, a mini Demo serve como um reflexo dessa “geração” meio indie. Becky Cloonan faz parte desse meio, seus personagens se vestem como ela. A música esta intimamente ligada a essas passagens da “moda”. Se sente a música nas hq’s demos. Demos pois são curtas, pequenas histórias com personagens jovens e aparentemente comuns, com seus problemas e seus “estilos”.

A grande sacada esta ai, há “poderes” em meio a hq, revelados somente no seu final. O bacana acaba se tornando descobri qual é o “fardo” que cada personagem carrega. Definitivamente uma série necessária e recomendada.

(ps: a última hq os papéis se invertem em dado momento, Brian desenha e Becky escreve. Em forma de prosa, solta… é uma das passagens mais belas da mini)

Os links para download:

Número 1

Número 2

Número 3

Número 4

Número 5

Número 6

Número 7

Número 8

Número 9

Número 10

Número 11

Número 12

Bem, na próxima (assim que eu encontrar) coloco uma história do John Constantine ótima, que é feita toda em cima de um música.

Só preciso me recordar quando e aonde saiu… alguém sabe? (eu vou ter que revirar minhas pilhas e caixas aqui para ver pelo jeito)

E para fechar, um desenho que eu fiz, ouvindo Little Joy:

Eu ainda to fazendo umas coisas, acho q vou pintar no Photoshop e tal… essa versão ta “crua”, só com lápis msm, e o scanner não ajuda, perdeu vários pequenos detalhes….mas tudo bem, só para não perder o costume =D

lucas ticano

After seeing Watchmen this week I was pretty depressed regarding comics place in this world, but then I made a trip to my regular comic shop, (Midtown Comics on 40th & 7th in midtown Manhattan,) and I’m as giddy as a schoolgirl! Comics are a pretty diverse medium and as often as something new or original or interesting comes along, twice as frequently you see nothing but the same old stuff on the stands. But this week, as I’m picking up the next Old Man Logan story, an only mildly interesting Wolverine story set in a bleak future, and the increasingly bad Invincible, I notice a JAMIE DELANO(!) PIRATE(!!!) comic! And a Frank Frazetta WESTERN!!! Holy Crap! And there’s the obligatory Savage Dragon #145 with President Obama on the cover, which turns out to actually be good! And Terry Moore’s Echo just keeps getting better and better! Even Robert Kirkman makes me happy this month with another heart-stopping cliffhanger in The Walking Dead! Man, reading comics this week really rocked. Let me tell you why.

Earlier this year I began reading the collected John Constantine: Hellblazer comics from the late 80’s/early 90s by Jamie Delano. Being a fan of old-school and classic horror literature, (Lovecraft, Poe, Barker, Blackwood,) and it’s rather unique ability to use not-so-subtle metaphor to address our contemporary fears, I was quickly blown away by Delano’s ability in this genre within comics. I’ve also enjoyed Moore’s Swamp Thing, and some of Ennis’ work, but they seemed too quick to get it out of their system and move on to superheroes. Delano seemed ready to really dig into the meaty, messy gristle of modern horror themes in comics. But he hasn’t been a terribly present writer on the comics scene lately, so it was with great excitement that I discovered on the stands his new pirate comic: Rawbone, published by Avatar Press. It has a thrillingly moody wraparound cover of a pirate ship, sailing by a jungle-clad coast with clearly South American pyramid temples jutting up through the treetops. All too often, fringy work like this gets saddled with young, unskilled artists, but flipping through the pages revealed Max Fiumara to be quite a talent. I’ve not been overly wowed by his versatile work with Warren Ellis and on the dragon comic Four Eyes, but this moody stuff seems to be where he can shine, especially coupled with a good colorist. Anyway, when I got the comic home and read Delano’s story of a Cuban pirate witch and her white lesbian lover, full of male frustration and assault and vile rape, with at least three main story acts in just the first issue, and all told in a disgustingly rich flowery language, I knew I couldn’t wait for more. My only regret is discovering that this is merely a 4 issue limited series. It’s thrilling to read something so unique by such a skilled veteran talent. Delano has long understood the comics form and his horror roots are quite evident as he embarks on this incredibly dark pirate story. While it’s not yet apparent whether the tale will incorporate the supernatural, it hardly needs to in order to investigate man’s darker nature.

Next was Frank Frazetta’s Freedom, a western one-shot. I’m not actually sure what Frazetta had to do with this comic other than provide the inspirational cover image, (which is typically luscious,) but the interior art and story, by John Cboins and Mark Kidwell respectively, more than lives up to Frazetta’s reputation. Cboins has a very unique style, very expressionistic, a recent comic art movement I’m also enjoying in the work of Proof’s Riley Rossmo.
Cboins colors this issue himself in all sepia tones, a trick that could have seemed gimmicky, given the setting, but thankfully is very well done here. The story involves a gunfighter and his dime-novelist bard, and is reasonably light hearted for a western, though prostitutes and death are certainly not absent. It’s so nice to see two negelected genres given such quality treatment in the same month, and even by two different publishers! It makes me yearn for more, but at the same time, I’d hate to see the market inundated by mediocre pirate and western comics, similar to the zombie craze of the last couple years.

Not so unique, but still very satisfying this month were some more mainstream books, starting with Erik Larsen’s long-running Savage Dragon, #145. This issue featured U.S. President Barack Obama on the cover, fist-bumping the title character, and colored in a style like Shepard Fairey’s famous red, white, and blue Obama Hope posters. It’s an obvious cashing in on the moment device, but Obama’s scene within the comic, while brief, actually is WITHIN the story and seems natural, puts our heroes, the Dragon and Obama, on equal footing, and just generally seems great. Quite unlike the pandering, badly drawn, and pointless and out-of-continuity, but much more hyped Spider-Man appearance, which I discussed here. In fact, this is Obama’s second appearance in Larsen’s book; he appeared last year when Dragon first endorsed Barack Obama for the presidency, a move far too political for corporate Marvel to ever consider making with their flagship character, as depressing as that is. I regret not having read Savage Dragon over the years. In fact, back at the founding of Image I didn’t care for Erik Larsen much at all. But over time I’ve picked up an occasional issue and every time I’m very impressed with what he’s done. In a large way I really feel he’s gone on to carry the torch for a lot of what Jack “the King” Kirby did before him. Larsen’s graphic style definitely shares many of Kirby’s traits, from the bold thick use of blacks, to the overly dramatic and energetic shapes exploding off the page. Not to mention Larsen’s style, once a rather slap-dashed mess not overly distinguishable from many of his contemporaries, has over years and years of honing his craft become inimitably his own, not easily reproducible and possessed of incredibly powerful storytelling traits- rather similar to the King’s, if you ask me. Maybe I’ve got to buckle down one of these days and really start reading Savage Dragon.

Finally, also continuing to be exciting this month are Terry Moore’s Echo #10, and Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard’s The Walking Dead #59. If you’re not reading either of these comics, you should be. Echo is a nice chance to see Moore bringing us more of his very fine comics art and storytelling, but with a more sci-fi/superhero twist. The story is kind of The Fugitive crossed with The Incredible Hulk, but with strong women characters thrown in as only Terry Moore knows how. Every issue is a real cliffhanger even though the plotting seems a touch slow at times. Walking Dead, for those of you living under a rock for the last 5 years, is THE post-zombie apocalypse comic to read. Zombie comics are a dime a dozen these days, but none hold a candle to this incredibly well done and intense ongoing storyline of real humans surviving in a dark sad world where the dead walk. Kirkman’s main intent with the series is to focus on the realistic human melodrama that occurs between the characters, with the zombie-riddled world serving mainly as backdrop. It’s an utterly fascinating book, from issue to issue, and though Kirkman suffers from frequent slow pacing and sometimes a sense that nothing is really happening, it’s not nearly as bad as in Invincible, and I’m always chomping at the bit for the next issue of The Walking Dead- especially this month! Man, I can’t wait to see how the characters survive the “zombie stampede!”

All in all, this past month has been a good one for comics. With the economy in arrears as it is, I’m sure I’m not the only comic book reader taking a close look at his pull list and deciding to drop a few books here and there, as well as having a hard time deciding which, if any, new books to pick up. I hope this blog can give you some assistance in these choices.

Until next time,

Peace!

Hace muchos años, cuando la Atlántida todavía era un continente pujante y casi paradisíaco, estaba en casa de Martín, gran amigo y compañero de lo bueno y lo malo de esos años.  Mate de por medio y con un casette de Jaime Roos sonando, me alarga tres revistas de historietas.

—Mirá lo que encontré! —me dice con voz a medias excitada y a medias reverente.

—Y esto? — Digo tomando las revistas.  Miro la cubierta y leo el título en voz alta: Hellblazer.

—Y entonces? —me apremia Martín.

—Entonces, qué?

—Leé, abombáu, leé!

Gesticulaba con las manos de tal manera que parecía “fisurado”.  Así que le hice caso, un poco por curiosidad y otro poco por miedo: nunca lo había visto tan alterado por una revista de morondanga. Y me puse a leer… y ya no pude parar hasta devorar las tres revistas.  Ese fue mi primer contacto de verdad con John Constantine.  Un personaje que había visto muy brevemente en alguna historieta de La Cosa del Pantano.

No recuerdo a qué números correspondían las dos primeras, pero la última fue la que hizo que adorara a ese personaje, que intentara sumergirme en su historia, y conseguir todos las entregas posibles.  Era el número 27, titulada “Abrázame”.

Ese número también me abrió los ojos frente a la simple y muchas veces ignorada acción de abrazar a alguien, y que ese alguien, claro está, te devuelva el abrazo.  Es un refugio.  Un oasis.  Una pequeña comunión.  Cuando un abrazo es sincero, se es testigo y protagonista del encuentro de los cuerpos, pero sobre todo, de las almas, que se iluminan y se entibian.  Un mundo se engloba en el abrazo; el universo entero.

Algunos de mis mejores recuerdos, y varias de las imágenes más vívidas que perviven en mi mente están relacionadas con los abrazos.  Momentos únicos e irrepetibles que se guardan como un tesoro, porque aún en el recuerdo entibian el estíritu.

Es así que te dejo hoy, esta pequeña historia.  De viñetas sucias y caóticas, que es parte del estilo y la manera en que se cuenta, pero poderosa, al menos a mis ojos.

Hellblazer #27. El Hijo Bastardo tiene las descargas, tanto en inglés como en en español.  El enlace es una especie de transcripción en formato texto.

Crime Pays in Comics: Ian Rankin and His Comic Book Love

By Zack Smith

Starting Vertigo’s Crime Line: Ian Rankin on Dark Entries

By Zack Smith

An exlusive talk with the internationally-renowned crime novelist on his all-new graphic novel for Vertigo.

Read the full interview here!

Alan Moore-uka, dag 4. Glem Keanu Reeves’ slappe rolletolkning i Constantine-filmen, og sjekk ut røttene til en av Alan Moores mest fascinerende figurer.

Den kjederøykende engelskmannen John Constantine dukket opp som bifigur i Alan Moores Swamp Thing på 1980-tallet, og er still going strong. Nylig kom nummer 251 av Swamp Thing-spinoffserien Hellblazer, og nå har en av mine gamle favorittforfattere tatt over roret: Engelskmannen Peter Milligan.

Det skal bli spennende for meg, ferskinger anbefales å sjekke ut disse først for en innføring i John Constantines verden

Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette og John Totleben
Swamp Thing: The Curse
Vertigo/DC Comics
6/6

Jamie Delano og John Ridgway
Hellblazer: Original Sins
Vertigo/DC Comics
5/6

Garth Ennis og William Simpson
Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits
Vertigo/DC Comics
5/6

John Constantine ble skapt av Alan Moore i bladet Swamp Thing allerede i 1984, som en blanding av en  Sting med sans for det okkulte og en trenchcoatkledd privatdetektiv à la Philip Marlowe og Sam Spade. I utgangspunktet var han en mystisk, allvitende og nærmest overnaturlig bifigur, som fikk en stadig viktigere rolle i en av tidenes beste skrekkserier. Swamp Thing-boka The Curse rommer de første heftene med Constantine, og deretter er det bare å fortsette med resten av bøkene i serien.

Constantine ble så populær at DC Comics ga ham bladet Hellblazer i 1988, og boka Original Sins samler de første heftene i serien. Manus var ved Moore-disippelen Jamie Delano, som gjorde en kompetent jobb med å utvikle Constantines personlighet og privatliv.

Noe av mystikken forsvant, men John Constantine har vist seg som en av tegneseriens sterkeste antihelter gjennom over 200 blader. Forfattere som Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, Eddie Campbell, Brian Azzarello, Mike Carey og Warren Ellis har alle bidratt, men det er nok Garth Ennis’ serier som har vært de aller beste.

Bok Dangerous Habits samler Ennis’ aller første forsøk, der han går vekk fra de verste skrekkfantasiene og lar Constantine kjempe en tøff kamp mot lungekreft. Ennis’ Hellblazer-serier står i ettertid frem som generalprøven for den påfølgende suksessen med Preacher, og de er samlet i til sammen seks bøker.

Opprinnelig publisert i Bergens Tidende, i anledning norgespremieren på filmatiseringen Constantine.

Earlier in the week, frequent Burning Leaves commenter and my eerie personality doppelgänger Andi over at Tripping Towards Lucidity posted an incomparable essay on why she reads comic books and graphic novels in her column “The Finicky Reader” at BiblioBuffet. For those of you who peer through opera glasses and swirl glasses of brandy while you read my reviews, oftentimes finding yourself stumped as to why a well-educated young woman who holds a master’s degree in English literature (pronounced lit-ra-chure amongst the opera-glasses-and-brandy crowd) and teaches writing for a living would waste her time reading those silly ol’ comic books of all things – Andi answers all your questions, and she answers them well. So now I don’t have to go through the trouble. Click on the link to her column to go read it.

—————–

Review

Neil Gaiman’s The Books of Magic is an unusual work. While it has a coherant narrative structure, it seems to serve more as a showcase of the various magical characters residing in the DC Universe than Gaiman’s usual ponderous fare. That’s not to say it’s entirely devoid of thought-provoking material – it just comes off as more of a Who’s Who List reminding fans that DC’s repetoire extends beyond superheroes than a labor of love for the fantasy genre.

In a plot echoing A Christmas Carol, four of the universe’s most adept and feared practitioners of magic – The Phantom Stranger, Doctor Occult, Mister E, and the always enjoyable John Constantine – guide mortal child Timothy Hunter through various fantastical realms. They intend to sway his latent powers towards the side of magic rather than science, and Gaiman characteristically incorporates elements from sources originating in all time periods and movements in order to piece together a rich, atmospheric story. To an extent he is successful, but as a whole The Books of Magic seems rushed and somewhat disjointed. Even though Zatanna and Jason Blood are always welcome and interesting characters, having to include so many figures from DC’s roster forces the story to move too quickly and leaves intriguing themes only lightly explored. It is not unreadable by any stretch of the imagination - Gaiman bequeaths John Constantine with brilliantly dry, sarcastic dialogue, and Mister E and Timothy’s excursion to the end of the universe includes some fantastic concepts – but as a whole it is not one of his essential works.

The painterly style of the artwork recalls delicate watercolors and could easily stand on its own separate from the dialogue. It is so beautiful, in fact, that oftentimes it distracted me from reading. Rather than working in tandem with the writing, the artwork diverted attention away from it, which only served to add to the overall sense of unevenness. However, I appreciated that, like the writing, the artists also draw their inspiration from a wide variety of eclectic materials. There were times when I felt like I was watching a fantasy interpretation of a Talking Heads video instead of reading a comic book.

Bibliographic Information

Gaiman, Neil, and John Bolton. The Books of Magic. New York: DC Comics, 1993.

Further Reading

Anyone interested in Gaiman’s ability to amalgamate history, philosophy, mythology, and other sources ought to read his masterful Sandman series. It is a quintessential example of postmodern fantasy, and some of his iconic Endless characters even have cameo appearances in The Books of Magic. Here, Gaiman is given enough space to introduce and flesh out a staggering cast of characters as well as delve deeply into weightier subject matter.

~Riot, who apologizes for the large spans of time between posts as of late. She’s been crazy busy and a touch sick.

z comicoo.com

Za każdym razem, kiedy czytałem Sandmana miałem ochotę wyszukać wszystkie piosenki, które pojawiają się w „Dream a Little dream of me”. Morfeusz odnajduje Constantina i wyruszają na poszukiwania pierwszego ze skradzionych Księciu Snów atrybutów. A wcześniej Johnowi towarzyszy muzyka. Gdziekolwiek pójdzie wszystko mu mówi, że … sen. Dzisiejsza notka nie kryje głębszych treści, ale może być pomocna dla kogoś, kto tak jak ja chciał zebrać ścieżkę dźwiękową do komiksu. Pozostałych zapraszam do słuchania. To świetne, klasyczne piosenki. Co z tego, że odrobinę kiczowate.

1.       Jest 10:45. Constantine się budzi, a pokój wypełniają dźwięki „Dream a Little dream of me”. I dym pierwszego tego dnia papierosa. Autorami muzyki są Fabian Andre i Wilbur Schwandt, a słowa napisał Gus Kahn. Pierwszy raz zarejestrowano ją w 1931 roku. Potem śpiewali ją wszyscy. Bing Crosby, The Mamas & the Papas, Diana Krall, a nawet Pete Doherty. W moim świecie John słyszy jednak tę wersję: Ella Fitzgerald I Louis Armstrong.

2.       Radio-budzik pokazuje 11:20. Nasz mag zbiera się do wyjścia. W następnej scenie będzie prowadził miłą pogawędkę z Londynem, ale nie wyprzedzajmy faktów, bo najpierw The Chordettes śpiewają „Mr. Sandman”.  Pierwsze miejsce Billboardu w stanach w 1954 roku. I gatunek muzyki, który był nazywany barbershop music.  

3.       Podczas śniadania w „Easy Diner” Constantine chce puścić „I Heard it through the grapevine” (najbardziej znane w wersji Marvina Gaye). Szafa grająca ma jednak własne zdanie na ten temat i Patsy Cline zaczyna „Sweet dreams”.  

4.       Szukaniu informacji o Sandmanie towarzyszą dźwięki „Sweet Dreams”  Eurythmics (tych, których cover zrobił też Manson).

5.       I „Dream Lover” Bobbiego Darina.

6.       Ta sama strona. John zasypia na fotelu przed telewizorem. Na ekranie napis „AIDS”, a z głośników „The Power of love” – Frankie goes to Hollywood.

7.       Chyba najbardziej znana scena tego zeszytu. Morfeusz rozlewa się czernią na tylnym siedzeniu taksówki Chasa, a Roy Orbison śpiewa w radio „The candy-colored clown they call the Sandman”. John komentuje: „Candy-colored clown? – Yeah, right”. „In Dreams”.

8.       Na koniec Constantine odchodząc nuci „Mr. Sandman”. Raz jeszcze.

Słodkich snów.