nixsight

Posting this remarkably late – on the fourth of the New Year – for which there is no excuse. Except, of course, there are plenty of excuses – it is, after all, hard drinkin’ season.

For the sake of organisation, I’m predating the post to a little earlier. Of course, I’ve long since realised that I’m the only person who cares about these things, but it feels only right to mention it!

Northlanders Vol 1: Sven The Returned – Brian Wood & Davide Gianfelice

Brian Wood is an oddity among comic creators – aside from one diversion into mutant territory a few years back, he has almost exclusively made a living off the beaten narrative track, while still working predominantly with one of the mainstream publishers.

So that he decided to write a comic about vikings, and that DC were willing to publish it under their Vertigo imprint, isn’t as much of a surprise as it could be.

That it’s really, very bloody good shouldn’t be a surprise either. Wood has a naturally understated writing style which isn’t showy at all, and maybe doesn’t grab for readers like the writing of some of his contemporaries, but the quality and craft is consistently present.

The story he’s come up with here is a classic epic saga, taking in this volume the point of view of an accomplished Viking on his return home to find his lands stolen and his estates taken over by his corrupt uncle Gorm and his uncle’s organisation.

This story spans the first eight issues of the book – a pretty decent sized volume for a trade paperback – and Wood lets his story breathe, with supporting characters weaving in and out of Sven’s personal mission convincingly, and his own motives and responses to events evolving and shown convincingly throughout.

Davide Gianfelice brings clean-lined and European art to the book, stylised but always clear and with an eye to story-telling that isn’t common enough in modern comics. It takes a few pages to get used to, to tell the truth, and Dave McCaig’s colouring has an unusual colour palette that takes a bit of time, too, but once the reader’s eye is onside, it’s vivid and lurid and lush.

For some reason – maybe the paper stock or editorial will – this book is retailing cheap – $9.99 or £6.50 for 200 pages – and as a loss-leader it deserves to garner the ongoing series a lot of attention.

Fishtown – Kevin Colden

“Fishtown” is a beautiful hardcover IDW book collecting a Xeric Award-winning weekly webcomic by Kevin Colden.

The book is set in Philadelphia, and follows the story of four teenagers involved in the murder of a sixteen-year-old boy. Though the case dealt with in the book is inspired by real events, Colden avoids detailing the crime itself, instead opting to examine the varied motives leading to it, and the emotional aftermath for the perpetrators following it.

It’s a self-assured piece of work, with beautiful art and nicely muted monochramatic colours that match the production design of the book, writing that builds layers of meaning rather than battering you over the head with it, and dialogue that parses as perfectly real.

There’s a documentary feel to the book, which unfolds mostly through interview sessions with the teens, and never takes the obvious route to telling the reader what is happening. It’s effective and creepy, as well as very human.

If there’s a problem with the book at all, it’s that sometimes – especially in the first third of the book – this allusive rather than explicit quality, coupled with the flatness of the delivery and Colden’s functional character art, makes what is going on a little obscure.

Having said that, the book follows such a pleasingly circular structure, with the interview timeline and the actual flashback timeline looping back on themselves, that you want to go back and read through from the beginning again almost straight away, partly to get a clearer sense of what happened, and partly for the love of it.

Criminal Vol 3: The Dead And The Dying – Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips

Both Brubaker and Phillips have been doing sterling work throughout their respective working careers, and each of them has this in common – they consistently produce awesome, authentic work, and they both make it look easy.

When they met, it was murder. Literally-ish.

I love seeing each of them work with other artists/writers – in Brubaker’s case, it’s always a joy to see him work with Michael Lark, for example – but when the two collaborate, they usually produce noir-esque perfection – even when they’re working superheroes.

“Criminal” is the ultimate expression to date of the collaboration’s noir work, and the previous two books have been superb. The latest volume is as consistently good as previous outings, with Brubaker’s characterisation and dialogue on form, and Phillips’ art richer and sometimes more expressionistic than his earlier work, which works well with this story.

The story here is a little different from the previous outings, because over the course of the three chapters contained herein, only one storyline is examined, but from three different vantage points. It’s a Rashomon tactic, not unfamiliar in contemporary cinema.

The slight flaw with this approach is that Brubaker opts to arrange the chapters chronologically backwards, so that we see the catalystic character’s story, leading up to the events in the first chapter, last, which in the comic medium creates an emotional redundancy that knackers the overall effect here.

Each chapter works beautifully as a self-contained story, but if I’d been buying the books month-on-month I might have been frustrated by the lack of story progression. From a writer with less goodwill stored than Brubaker, it’d feel like gimmick writing.

Still, a lovely book, and it’s always cool to see these guys working together. I’ve got “Incognito” by the partnership to review for next week, so the hits just keep on coming…!

Y: The Last Man Vol 6 to Vol 8  – Brian K. Vaughan & Pia Guerra (with Goran Sudzuka & Jose Marzan Jr)

“Y: The Last Man” moves on apace – volume 9 is currently out of my reach, with Amazon out of stock and my local comic shop for some reason retailing it at a higher price than other volumes, but it will be mine!

At this point, the quality of the writing and art is a given, but it’s always worth mentioning that across these three volumes, the killer team of Vaughan and Guerra remains consistently outstanding, with the regular contributions by Sudzuka maintaining the quality and the whole thing pulled together nicely by Marzan, Jr’s inks.

So, all that may go without saying, but it’s always worth mentioning. It’s rare enough in comics that it’s always worth mentioning.

The impressive thing here with Vaughan’s writing is that despite the fact that two or three chapters back he seemed to reveal the last pertinent plot secrets, he still manages to pull twists and turns out of the hat that keep the reader engaged.

These books continue the quest to find Ampersand, the last male monkey. Along the way there are diversions, intrigue, dangerous liaisons and full-frontal male nudity. Vaughan breaks the mystery of Beth’s condition, and of who Dr M and the ninja are. There’s more information about Agent 355, and we see what happens when the world finds out that there is still one last living male.

Vaughan closes the loop on his secrets with near-disregard for leaving himself nowhere to go. At the same time, he goes back and fills in the blanks where we didn’t even realise there were gaps, through both flashbacks and by revisiting past supporting characters.

The thing I’ve noticed the most in these last few volumes is that every scene or encounter that Yorick and his entourage have had, no matter how incidental it might have seemed at the time, isn’t forgotten – and is actually vital to the ongoing book.

I’m actually wondering whether that’s going to turn out to be a superficial thing, actually. As I read the series first time through, with the speedy momentum of it, it seems to make perfect sense, but I wonder whether it will all read as a little too tightly packed and convenient in retrospect.

I’m fairly sure I’ll find out soon enough – we’re near the end, and I think I’ll find it hard to resist a second read-through soon after completing it.