A mixed bag. Of which, I thought the vast majority were terrible.
The best of the bunch was Brian Azzarello's The Bad Night. You'll have to trek througA mixed bag. Of which, I thought the vast majority were terrible.
The best of the bunch was Brian Azzarello's The Bad Night. You'll have to trek through a lot of crap to get at it, as it's the last story in this collection.
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Jeff Lemire's Silo had his awful scribbling art, but I liked the story of an old farmer and bank robber.
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Gary Philip's The New Me was good as well, but it had a bit of a sci-fi twist at the end that made it seem out of place.
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I expected a lot more out of Brubaker and Philips 21st Century Noir. It was an ok story but it didn't wow me.
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I'm not saying the rest were all dogs but they were either forgettable enough that I don't care to give them a mention, or I thought they sucked. A lot of people seemed to really like this, but it felt like the reading equivalent of a bag of trail mix someone had eaten all of the M&Ms out of - leaving nothing but raisins. Do with that what you will....more
Pulpy goodness all the way through. Ms. Tree takes no prisoners, gives no fucks about the law, and likes to shoot people who piss her off. I was shockePulpy goodness all the way through. Ms. Tree takes no prisoners, gives no fucks about the law, and likes to shoot people who piss her off. I was shocked - and I mean that in the best way possible.
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I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that it took me reading the title of the book out loud to my daughter for me to realize that "Ms. Tree" was a play on words. I may or may not have actually facepalmed myself when it hit me.
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These stories are (I believe) collected from a run in the 80s, so just know that going in and prepare yourself for an odd moment here and there. But I think for the most part these stand the test of time as Ms. Tree rocks it like a boss.
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The very skinny gist is that Ms. Tree is the owner of a very successful P.I. firm with underlings who are smart, supportive, and resourceful. She's the headliner and all-around badass whose name is the selling point of the agency, mainly due to her successful and bloody vendetta against the mob boss who killed her husband. Her stepson lives with her and despite some teenage turmoil, there's some real family love underneath it all.
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There's a bit of a Romeo-Juliet storyline as her stepson and the niece of the mob boss who killed his father have fallen in love. That plays into several of the (comic) issues that bring the two families together and makes for odd bedfellows at times.
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The last few issues deal with Ms. Tree finding out she's pregnant by {spoiler!} and kicking ass while pregnant, and then a kidnapping of her infant daughter where everyone comes together to kick ass and rescue the baby. She does not play when it comes to family, btw.
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Maybe this reflects badly on me, but I love that she is always smiling when she kills someone. I just...I don't know. It liked her more because she didn't feel bad about it. Embrace yourself, I say! I also want to point out how refreshing it was to see a woman portrayed in the same way a man would be when it came to the way she was dressed. She wasn't slinking around in fishnets or a leather bodysuit. Normal clothes! Thank you.
Aw man, I really wanted to like this more than I actually did. Because I love the premise. The Satanic Panic is one of those The Satanic Panic!
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Aw man, I really wanted to like this more than I actually did. Because I love the premise. The Satanic Panic is one of those curious moments in history where we wonder how in the world so many people could have fallen for that nonsense. But having lived through the 80s as a kid in an evangelical household, I can tell you truthfully that the adults were terrified. And those of us young enough to still be influenced by those adults were confused and scared, as well. Ah, the good old days when Geraldo Rivera was reporting on free-range Satanists who were supposedly roaming around raping and eating children or some other equally bananas conspiracies. Bless his heart.
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Brubaker and Phillips take us on a journey that is part crime, part horror, and increasingly realistic in the portrayal of the insanity then and now. The story follows a woman who was one of the children groomed to accuse adults of ritualistic abuse. It flashes backward and forward in time to show how the guilt and infamy that followed her ruined her life and set her on a path toward the seemingly unavoidable conclusion. The undertone of false memories that still seem real to her gave the story a wicked edge that helped walk the line into the maybe supernatural.
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I don't want to give anything away, but I will say that I found the ending extremely flat. In fact, it was so unsatisfying, that I immediately started searching to see if there would be more to this story. But if they're planning to continue, I can't find it.
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Still. The concept and execution right up till the end were good enough that I'd recommend it to anyone who is thinking about grabbing it.
A struggling detective with a secret gets emotionally involved in a young woman's murder.
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When his father's old police partner comes to him witA struggling detective with a secret gets emotionally involved in a young woman's murder.
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When his father's old police partner comes to him with a missing person's case, he already knows something hinky must be going on. Why not go to the cops? But he owes him one (maybe more than one) in the way only family-not-family owes so much to each other, so he takes the case.
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What happens next sets him on the trail of a killer, leads him to an old cult leader who might be up to his old tricks, and opens up a can of worms about family.
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Early Brubaker and Philips is still excellent Brubaker and Philips. Highly Recommended....more
Not my favorite, but I still enjoyed it. This is a continuation of the story (press the fast-forward button quite a few years) of the first volume, CowNot my favorite, but I still enjoyed it. This is a continuation of the story (press the fast-forward button quite a few years) of the first volume, Coward. (view spoiler)[
You find out that Ellie is actually Angie, the little girl that Leo saved after her mother was murdered, and that Gnarly ended up raising. Leo is having some trouble in prison with Aryans, and (without his prior knowledge) Ellie/Angie seduces the son of someone in witness protection in order to find his father and stop him from testifying against a powerful criminal. In return, Leo will be protected in prison.
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Not exactly a happy note to end on, but we see how everyone's actions come back full circle for generations. (hide spoiler)]
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I don't think this would work well as a stand-alone because it's an off-putting subject seeing a teenage girl romanticize junkies. So I would recommend going back and reading all of the books in the original Criminal series. Even so, the subject matter might be jarring depending on your experience with addicts and addiction.
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Idolizing junkies stems from the memories of her mother, who loved her and eventually got cleaned up - then got herself killed. So, all she had were these little girl remembrances of this affectionate, if fucked up, cool mom who died too soon. She wasn't old enough, and her mother hadn't fallen down hard enough, for her to have lived with the actual long-term trauma of growing up with an addict. So what memories she has are dreamy, and she uses the music made by addicts to further her glorified view of addiction. Or at least, that's how I saw it.
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The skinny gist is that"Ellie" is put into rehab and doesn't really want to be there. She connects with another young man in her group sessions and forms a relationship with him that leads to both of them getting high and going on the run. It ends badly. Because of course it does. But it doesn't end badly for the reasons you might think.
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I thought it was good, but your personal mileage will vary. Recommended. Ish....more
Not for me. I read the foreword to try and get a feel for what this was going to be about, as I had never read anything by Alejandro Jodorowsky before.Not for me. I read the foreword to try and get a feel for what this was going to be about, as I had never read anything by Alejandro Jodorowsky before. Maybe something is lost in translation, but he sounded very up-his-own-ass in it. Especially the part where he talked bout how one artist couldn't draw faces, one could only do robots, one wasn't good with landscapes - and how he wrote the stories that allowed them to work within those parameters.
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There were little forewords in front of each story that didn't add much to the reading experience other than to overexplain a bit for my taste, as well.
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But maybe I just didn't understand what I was getting into? I only grabbed it because it was a Hoopla Bonus Borrow and I was out of comics. Anyway. I thought all the stories kind of sucked (except the one about the vampire, ironically), but none of them were long enough to actually hate.
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Whatever this is, I'm not the right audience for it. Recommended for someone else....more
A retelling of Lovecraft's A Thing on the Doorstep. Which I haven't read yet, as I'm not a huge fan of Lovecraft - don'thurtme.
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The book opens wiA retelling of Lovecraft's A Thing on the Doorstep. Which I haven't read yet, as I'm not a huge fan of Lovecraft - don'thurtme.
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The book opens with a man walking into an asylum and shooting his best friend. This is the story of why Daniel Upton says he didn't murder Edward Derby.
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Two boys who speak to each other like they're both about 40 years old meet at a museum. One boy is frail and sheltered and incredibly interested in the occult. The other is a bit more normal, but for whatever reason, they click and form a bond that lasts over the years.
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The rest of this part one shows the two as they grow into men, still part of each other's lives as they find love and children. Daniel and his wife even name their son, Edward Derby Upton.
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And while Daniel's family seems normal, the woman Edward loves is a bit odd. *cue Psycho violin screech*
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The art is serviceable and I want to know what happens next, so I'll probably grab Part Two. Recommended for Lovecraftian horror fans....more
Carver. Holden Carver. It doesn't have quite the same ring as a James Bond, does it? Still. If you like spy stories, you could do a whole lot worse thanCarver. Holden Carver. It doesn't have quite the same ring as a James Bond, does it? Still. If you like spy stories, you could do a whole lot worse than this.
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The first part of this is Point Blank, a story told from Cole Cash's POV as he tries to figure out who shot his old comrade, John Lynch. Grifter circles around the truth as he becomes more and more befuddled and simultaneously less and less of a reliable narrator. I know some of my friends weren't crazy about Point Blank, but I enjoyed it and thought it did a good job setting up why Lynch was in a coma for the entirety of Sleeper.
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The Sleeper storyline revolves around Holden Carver, a double agent buried deep inside a dangerous criminal organization headed by the evil science experiment, Tao. He's risen through the ranks to become one of the highest-ranking members of Tao's Prodigals and fallen (in love?) into a relationship with another Prodigal, the bloodthirsty Miss Misery.
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The lines between good and bad have begun to blur, and by the end of Book One Holden is no longer sure that he can straddle the line between them.
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I think it helps to know a little about the Wildstorm universe. But if not, it would probably be enough to just know there is a broader Wildstorm universe out there and this story sits inside of it. Good stuff. Recommended....more
I want more. If Brubaker and Philips could just never be done with their Criminal series, I feel like it would set things just a little more right in tI want more. If Brubaker and Philips could just never be done with their Criminal series, I feel like it would set things just a little more right in the world.
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In 1976 Teeg Lawless pulls off an armored truck robbery with his crew, then gets sent to jail after a fight at the bar that evening gets him arrested on a bench warrant - for failure to appear in traffic court. Womp, womp. Sucks, but all he should have to do is ride out his 30 days and then collect his portion of the take from his partner. Except someone wants him dead and is willing to pay to see it happen. You almost feel sorry for him but it's hard to drum up any sympathy for Teeg.
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Fast forward to 1979 and we follow a young Tracy Lawless as he is pulled along for the world's worst road trip as his father goes after someone.
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This one is just heartbreaking. You really feel for Tracy, just wanting to be a normal kid with normal experiences, but he's never going to be anything but old beyond his years.
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I loved the addition of the fake pulpy comics that ran alongside both Teeg's and Tracy's stories. Teeg is reading something called Zangar the Savage and Tracy is reading Kung Fu Werewolf.
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I have to admit I was kind of into that werewolf story and wouldn't mind if Brubaker and Philips wanted to do a limited run with that one. I can't be the only one...
Tracy Lawless is working off a debt to Sebastian Hyde, but he's just a little too scrupulous for this line of work and tends to make sure tGood stuff.
Tracy Lawless is working off a debt to Sebastian Hyde, but he's just a little too scrupulous for this line of work and tends to make sure the people he is sent to kill actually deserve it.
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Hyde, unwilling to lose him but not digging the way he's working out as muscle, tasks him with finding out who is offing men in the city who should have been untouchable. This town just isn't safe for criminals anymore! And if tracking down a criminal serial killer isn't dangerous enough, it seems as though Tracy has decided to have an affair with the big man's wife. Don't worry, I'm sure that won't be a problem later on...
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To add a cherry on the top of all this mess, the military has sent someone to find him and bring him back. But hey, considering everything else that's going on, maybe that isn't the worst thing that can happen to him, right?
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Tracy is everyone's favorite Lawless, and you just can't help rooting for him to find a way out of this mess. But everyone knows that no good deed goes unpunished.
We first met Jacob as the counterfeiter who makes Tracy a new identity in Lawless. And now BrubakeGoddamn. This is how you write crime fiction.
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We first met Jacob as the counterfeiter who makes Tracy a new identity in Lawless. And now Brubaker tells us his story. And I was not expecting the story I got.
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Like all hardboiled crime noir, there's a lousy dame at the center of this one. And like everything else in this thing, she starts out one way and ends up as something entirely different.
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Jacob's backstory is that he married the niece of the biggest crime syndicate boss in the city, Sebastian Hyde. So, when she went missing and Detective Starr kept trying to point the finger at Jacob, his wife's uncle didn't take the news well. He had Jacob beaten until he was crippled, which brought on a nervous breakdown that left him institutionalized for quite some time. Meanwhile, his wife's body was found in her car, the victim of an apparent accident on the road. To assuage his guilt, Hyde made it so that Jacob could live out the rest of his days writing his Frank Kafka, Private Eye comic strip for the paper. The end result is that the cartoon Kafka is along for the ride in Jacob's head giving him advice and telling him to man up.
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The skinny gist? Iris (the lousy dame) and her scuzzball boyfriend catch Jacob's eye in a diner when they get into a vicious argument. Intrigued by her, he slowly rides to the rescue and ends up getting embroiled in a lot more than he ever bargained for. And that's all I can say without spoiling the whole shebang.
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This is one of my favorite Criminal storylines so far. Wow. Just...wow. Highly Recommended....more
Three different characters tell the same sad story from their own point of view. And it is really well done.
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Jake is a boxer and the son of the Three different characters tell the same sad story from their own point of view. And it is really well done.
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Jake is a boxer and the son of the closest confidant and enforcer of syndicate boss Walter Hyde. So he grew up with the heir of a crime family as his best friend. But as time changes both of them, their friendship takes a beating. And of course, it's over a woman.
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Teeg Lawless returns from Vietnam with more than a few issues and easily falls into the life of a mean drunk. And when his gambling habit catches up to him, he falls even more easily into the life of a small-time crook. But when he finds out the woman he's been sleeping with has set him up, and that he's stolen from Walter Hyde, some tough choices will have to be made if he wants to survive.
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Danica Briggs is the woman who flits through this storyline and sets the wheels in motion for all the men around her. And her story is about as sad as it comes. She fell in love with the wrong man and her whole life spiraled out of her control from that moment on. By the time you get to her story, you already know the ending. But it doesn't make the ride any less interesting.
How far will you go to avenge a brother you don't really know? Tracy Lawless comes from a family of small-time but well-known criminals. And when he wHow far will you go to avenge a brother you don't really know? Tracy Lawless comes from a family of small-time but well-known criminals. And when he was old enough to reach the pedals of a getaway car, he followed in that family business. Arrested at a young age, he was given the choice between military service or prison. He chose to enlist and was put to work using his special skill set for the American government.
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Fast forward many years and he's done something to land himself in stockade until whatever he had done blew over. And in that time, his little brother was killed. Armed with an old photo and a slew of bad memories, he sets out to find the people responsible and enact his own form of justice. The problem with that is that sometimes justice has already been served.
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I like where this is going so far and I can't imagine that Brubaker and Philips are taking us on a ride that will be anything less than spectacularly seedy.
In the last volume, the twins find out that their grumpy mother and carefree father have hidden depths when their mom tosses them inI'm hooked.
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In the last volume, the twins find out that their grumpy mother and carefree father have hidden depths when their mom tosses them in a haunted house and tells them to "fix" it. Like those parents who toss their kids in the pool and tell them to sink or swim. Except with demons and possessed dolls.
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When this volume opens, the twins are floundering. Trying to figure out not only who they are but what, as well. What does it mean to come from two immortal bloodlines? And two immortal bloodlines of...?
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Ok, so it starts with a ritual murder committed by what looks to be a bunch of sweet elderly philanthropists. When Milly starts seeing one of the ghosts who was murdered, she and Billy try to unravel the mystery behind it all. They also need to figure out why that creepy little doll they thought they were rid of is showing up again, as well.
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Not to mention something seems to want Billy's attention. Something that knows his father and wants to make a deal.
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And speaking of his Keon, it appears he has a brother? The family dynamics here were a lot of fun to start unpacking and I imagine it will only get more interesting from here on out.
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Ok. For me, the stars of the show are Ipo & Keron. I can't be the only one who thinks that, either. They're written in such a fun way that you can't help but want them to get as much page time as their children. I like that it's a generational story, and I appreciate that both generations are equally interesting.
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Alright, all of the above barely scratches the surface of this volume. I mean, you really get your money's worth out of this when it comes to juicy plot. This is easily turning into one of the titles I actively look forward to and search out, and one that I can see myself purchasing once it is collected into books.
Surprisingly good. This is set in the same world as Geoff Johns Geiger and it looks like there's going to be a team-up with these guys at some point.
[iSurprisingly good. This is set in the same world as Geoff Johns Geiger and it looks like there's going to be a team-up with these guys at some point.
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In 1972 Muddy Davis and his comrades had a robot soldier in their platoon. And he saved Muddy's life. WHAT? Yeah. It's a whole story that even he doesn't really believe anymore. As the only surviving member of their doomed tour in Vietnam, Muddy didn't talk about it with anyone. Instead, he wrote a cartoon strip for the Sunday paper that immortalized his memory of the character he now calls Junkyard Joe. <--think Beetle Bailey
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Present-day Muddy recently lost his beloved wife, decided to stop writing Junkyard Joe, and is curling up inside himself waiting to die. Until some new neighbors move in next door with a loss of their own to deal with and fate decides to intertwine their lives with another surprise. Junkyard Joe. He's real. He's on Muddy's doorstep. And he's being chased by some very bad people who don't care who they hurt.
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To be frank, I was not expecting to connect with this story, much less find myself moved by it. But between Johns' storytelling and Frank's art, I was sucked in and flipping the pages hoping that it would all work out in the end. And for a robot that never said a word, it still spoke volumes.
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I don't want to ruin the story for anyone with spoilers, so I'll just say that this was tender, bittersweet, and incredibly well done. I'm looking forward to reading more. Recommended....more
Not terrible. Not great. I don't really know exactly how I feel about this one.
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I never would have even looked twice but this one was a Bonus BoNot terrible. Not great. I don't really know exactly how I feel about this one.
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I never would have even looked twice but this one was a Bonus Borrow on Hoopla so I downloaded it for shits and giggles. It was better than I expected.
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There are 4 somewhat spooky stories in this volume, each with a different artist. I wasn't crazy about any of the art, tbh. Although, I did love the colors in Waking Nightmare.
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Midnight Oil (about the mother who lost her child) was the only story that made sense. The The Boy Who Came Closer & Waking Nightmare seemed half-formed. And while 101 really drew me in at first, it just kind of trailed off at the end without any real sort of satisfaction.
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I would try another comic by the author, though. There was a spark of something to all the issues that kept me reading. Maybe he just needs more time to find his footing?...more
Two cute, if forgettable, Sabrina holiday stories.
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The Longest Night <--by Kelly Thompson I've enjoyed Thompson's work on Sabrina. Wish she were Two cute, if forgettable, Sabrina holiday stories.
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The Longest Night <--by Kelly Thompson I've enjoyed Thompson's work on Sabrina. Wish she were still writing it. This could have been a really good story but the whys and hows just aren't there, and it possibly just needed a bit more page time to give the plot a bit of backstory. The skinny gist is that Sabrina and a few friends rescue another witch pal from a baddie. During the holidays.
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A Very Spellman Solstice <-- by Danielle Paige The Spellaman aunts tell Sabrina a story about the past. It was also ok but for some reason, the art style didn't do it for me in this one.
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I don't think I'd recommend this to anyone who wasn't specifically looking for a Sabrina Holiday Special, but it wasn't terrible....more
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