It’s the Fourth of July, American Independence Day, and so today I’m going to do a rundown of what independent comic books I’ve been reading recently. For the purposes of simplicity, I’m just going to consider anything that is not Marvel or DC as an independent. And I’ll be covering graphic novels in a later post, because otherwise this one is going to be way too long!
I’ve already written an in-depth review of The Grim Ghost before, but I wanted to mention it again. Written by Tony Isabella, with artwork from Kelley Jones & Eric Layton, for my money The Grim Ghost was the best superhero comic book of 2011. This six issue miniseries published by Atlas Comics unfortunately ran into some distribution problems with the final issue. As I’ve heard it, Diamond Distributors decided to cancel (or, as they would say, “re-solicit”) the shipping orders for a number of small companies at the end of last year, so that they could focus their resources on sending out the copious amounts of DC’s New 52 titles that were being ordered by comic shops. That’s the problem when it comes to dealing with a monopoly, folks, you’re at the mercy of decisions like that. Anyway, I was eventually able to obtain a copy of #6 by ordering it online from the Atlas Comics website. It was a great conclusion to a fantastic story.
As I’ve posted before on this blog, I’m currently following Erik Larsen’s long-running Savage Dragon and his revival of Supreme, both published by Image Comics. Larsen is one of my favorite comic book creators, a total fountain of colorful characters & imaginative ideas, and I really look forward to seeing what he does next on each of these titles.
Additionally, there is another pair of books from Image, written by Joe Keatinge, that I’m reading. The first is the re-launch of Rob Liefeld’s Glory, which Keatinge is doing with Ross Campbell. The other is a brand new series, Hell Yeah, with artist Andre Szymanowicz. That one is really interesting, as it looks at “the first generation raised in a world where superheroes exist,” to quote Keatinge himself. The protagonist, Benjamin Day, learns that across myriad alternate realities, other versions of him are being murdered. The identity of the killer is revealed within the first few issues, so it’s not a whodunit but rather a “whydunit,” so to speak. Keatinge’s writing is very riveting, and I cannot wait to find out what happens next. The artwork by Szymanowicz is very well done, having the feel of something out of Heavy Metal.
Steve Mannion is an artist with this incredibly wacky, zany, sexy art style. His work is somewhat reminiscent of EC Comics, both Wally Wood’s sci-fi spectacles and the offbeat humor of Mad Magazine. I first discovered Mannion’s artwork when he drew an utterly baffling, but nevertheless very funny, issue of Captain America about twelve years ago. Mannion went the self-publishing route for a while, but in recent years he’s had his books coming out through Asylum Press. His signature character, Fearless Dawn, has been featured in several books. The most recent have been Fearless Dawn: The Secret of the Swamp and Fearless Dawn in Outer Space. I haven’t had an opportunity to pick up the second of these yet, but The Secret of the Swamp was an insane riot, just lots of crazy fun. Mannion continues to grow as an artist, and I cannot wait to see what he does next.
Over at IDW, there are a few licensed titles I’ve been picking up. The main one is G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, written by Larry Hama. That’s the series which continues the continuity from the original comics published by Marvel back in the 1980s and 90s. It seems like Hama is having a lot of fun writing this book, and it’s definitely an exciting read. I’ve also been picking up some of the Doctor Who books, which do a good job of capturing the feel of the series. Right now IDW is publishing the improbable but entertaining Star Trek / Doctor Who: Assimilation miniseries, which has beautiful painted artwork by J.K. Woodward. This one is more of a natural fit than you might think, as the Borg are really pretty much the Cybermen with a bigger budget. So it makes sense to combine those two cyborg menaces, and then have the crews of the Enterprise and the TARDIS come together to confront them.
IDW is also publishing Godzilla. I bought the first few issues of their initial title, Kingdom of Monsters. That had nice art, but the writing just never clicked for me, and I ended up selling them on Ebay. I was much more impressed with the five issue miniseries Godzilla: Gangsters & Goliaths, written by John Layman, with artwork by Alberto Ponticelli. That was an incredibly deft blending of the kaiju genre with a noir hardboiled crime story. Layman wrote some very compelling human characters. Ponticelli’s art was stunning, offering stunning giant monster action sequences, as well as more human moments. Gangsters & Goliaths was published last year, but it has been collected into a trade paperback, which I highly recommend picking up.
I got the first two issues of the new X-O Manowar series published by Valiant. So far so good. The writing by Robert Venditti is very well done. He appears to have done a great deal of research into the historical era that the initial story arc is set in. The artwork from Cary Nord & Stefano Gaudiano is quite impressive. I really enjoyed the original Valiant books in the 1990s, so it’s nice to see them return. X-O Manowar is definitely a great initial title for their reboot. Hopefully I will have the funds to continue picking this one up.
I certainly cannot close out an entry on independent comic books without mentioning Love and Rockets by Jaime & Gilbert Hernandez, published by Fantagraphics Books. Since around 2001, I gradually began reading Love and Rockets through the collected editions. And within the last four years, I’ve really got into the series, as my girlfriend is a huge fan of the works of Los Bros Hernandez. Having someone I could discuss these stories and characters with really made them come alive for me even more so than in the past. As I have written previously, the Hernandez Brothers have both created large casts of interesting, multi-faceted, nuanced, compelling characters. I often find myself talking with my girlfriend about these characters and the plotlines they are involved in as if they were real people & events. And, of course, both Jaime and Gilbert are incredibly talented artists who not only draw amazingly beautiful women but also know how to tell a story through pictures.
For the last few years, Jaime & Gilbert Hernandez have been releasing Love and Rockets as a giant-sized, hundred page annual publication. Love and Rockets: New Stories #4 came out last autumn, which hopefully means the next edition will be on sale in a few months. In New Stories #4, Jaime continued the story of Maggie and Ray’s on-again, off-again tumultuous romance, as well as the tragic tale of Maggie’s brother Calvin. Jamie’s story had a really dark, heartbreaking occurrence, followed by an ending that seems deliberately ambiguous. It reminded me of his classic tale “The Death of Speedy,” where Jaime left it up to the reader to decide exactly what had happened at the conclusion.
In his half of the book, Gilbert appears to be continuing his recent practice of creating graphic novel adaptations of the B-movies that his character Rosalba “Fritz” Martinez has acted in. Fritz’s niece Killer (at least, I think that’s how they’re related… I’d love if Gilbert would put together a family tree for his characters, there are so many of them) follows in her aunt’s cinematic footsteps in New Stories #4, starring in a very strange vampire story. There seems to be a great deal of subtext and symbolism to Gilbert’s recent stories, and they no doubt benefit from repeated readings. I think that at times his work is perhaps too obscure. But at least it does require you to think it through, and work to interpret it.
This is an aspect that both Gilbert and Jamie’s work possesses, that their stories are not something you can just breeze through. There is a very substantive quality to their works. Love and Rockets is not the easiest read out there, but it is worth taking the time to try and figure out what the Hernandez Brothers are attempting to articulate through their stories. In other words, they really make you think, definitely a good thing.
There are obviously a great many more really good independent comic books currently being published besides the material I’ve covered in this blog post. Unfortunately, financial and time constraints prevent me from picking up more of the books out there. Just remember that those books do exist. They may not be as easy to find as the latest big events from Marvel or DC. But it is well worth it to take the time to seek out all the great stuff being published. The creative future of comic books really doesn’t lie with the Big Two any longer, but with the creators working on new & exciting projects released through the smaller independent publishers.
In My Not So Humble Opinion 