Pretty Deadly Cover

The book’s setting is the archetypical, familiar western setting, complete with small desert towns, corrupt sheriffs, and shady saloons. But the very first pages establish that this is not a mundane western story. In this world the land is magical, and the legends are real. Folk songs and old wive’s tales are forgotten truth, and one is best to heed their warnings. In Pretty Deadly world, Death himself is a gunslinger with a horse skull instead of a face, who often meddles in the affairs of mortals. His grim rippers travel the world and do his bidding, and the only person who openly defies him is his mortal daughter Ginny. She rides the wind, and comes to the aid of those in need if they know how to summon her with a special rhyme whispered into the breeze. Like in a Neil Gaiman story, the supernatural elements are woven into the fabric of the reality of this world and inseparable from it.

Death and his captive

I would not call myself a fan of the western genre. It is not something I read or watch often, and I don’t typically seek out stories about cowboys and gunslingers. But I was enthralled and captivated by this series. If I had to give you an elevator pitch, I would probably describe Pretty Deadly as: Sandman meets Preacher, meets Dead Lands with a pinch of American Gods thrown in for a good measure.

Ginny Deathface

I keep mentioning Neil Gaiman as if it was his story but it isn’t. Even though these comparisons are meant as a positive praise (I consider myself a long time Gaiman fan) I think these comparison might be doing a disservice to the excellent writing of Kelly Sue DeConnick. This is after all, her world, and her story being brought to life by the art of Emma Ríos. Their work is not a mere imitation or emulation of that particular style. Pretty Deadly invokes Gaiman’s style, but then goes beyond and builds something new and original on top of it.

Myths and legends are real

DeConnick expertly manipulates the Western setting, playing up familiar tropes only to tear them down and brutally subvert them. Characters you have pegged as bad guys, turn out to be unexpected heroes. Those you have assumed to be good guys are shown despicable. Even the all powerful Death ends up being developed into a tragic and complex character.

But western tropes are not the only things that are being subverted here. DeConnick and Rios conspire to break all the rules, starting with unconventional and unorthodox paneling. Rios uses the panel composition to create these claustrophobic funnels that build pressure and tension, or to direct action, and caged of inset areas to inform the surrounding action. Sometimes the panels bleed into each other, other times the panel lines become part of the architecture and set design.

The most interesting feature of her art however might be how she stages her combat scenes which sets her apart from most of her peers in the industry.

Ginny vs Alice

Sarah Horrocks wrote an excellent post about this on her blog 73 and I don’t think I could do her analysis justice if I tried to paraphrase it, so I will just quote the interesting bits here:

Female warriors in comics who are depicted as fast, shifty, untouchable are inherently at a deficit in their depiction to analogous male characters–because they create two spaces within their existence: one is the space that, if only they could be caught, then they could be conquered sexually, and the other is that their movement itself is meant to create the image of the beautiful untouchable woman on a pedestal that is the problematic way some men are taught to view women outside of these action packed scenarios.

It is because of these problems that when a fight comes along, particularly in western comics, like the fight in Pretty Deadly by Ginny Deathface and Big Alice–you tend to sit up and take notice. (…)

[Ginny] is set up in the first issue as this untouchable spirit of death. She is Queen Badass. But the Porcelain doll of death archetype is immedietely subverted in her very first fight in the second issue. She is most certainly Queen Badass–but she is not untouchable. She gets cut by Big Alice in the very first attacking exchange between the two. But she takes it and just keeps coming. Ginny continually sacrifices flesh and blood for tactical ground. And what’s more the perspective of the fight, and the character design employed for both characters doesn’t allow for any sexualization of this pain. This fight is never anything about two warriors brutally going at each other, doing whatever it takes to land the killing blow. There’s no perspectives, or contortions causing the characters to vogue for the camera. No orgasmic facial contortions. (…)

You want to know why so many female characters are supporting characters at best in adventure comics–it’s because of this notion of the primacy of their beauty over the brutality of the fight. It is the built in vanity of these characters as viewed objects rather than brutal fleshed out fighters who fully accept the stakes of their choices. (…)

But here’s the thing. Flesh is flesh. Blood is blood. Whether it comes out of a woman or a man, it is still blood. Pain is equal, fighting for your life is an animalistic experience that is not in any way tied to gender.

The notion being that sacrifice of blood for a final victory would be the domain solely of men is atrocious.

For context, Horrocks is comparing and contrasting Pretty Deadly with Blade of the Immortal by Hiroaki Samura with respect to how these works depict female fighters. The entire article is worth reading, but I think the excerpt quoted above works well as a glowing recommendation of the book.

Pretty Deadly is not just a blend of western, horror and folk tale. It is a western, horror folk tale centered around strong complex women (both as protagonists and antagonists) which manages to completely avoid objectification so endemic and entrenched in the comic book medium. If that, combined with the fantastic writing and striking and unique art style is not enough to convince you to read it, I don’t know what is.

If you read only one comic book series this year, make it this one.

Rat Queens

Here is a little personal story: during my first RPG session we encountered some undead. My character was a warrior: a commoner thug who used to be a highwayman up until he decided to go adventuring with a dwarf, and elf and a wizard. Seeing how he was a country bumpkin all his life, and this was his first big adventure I tried to role-play him being paralyzed with fear at the sight of the walking dead. It did not really go over well with anyone else in the group: everyone else was already in combat mode with dice in hand and they had neither time nor desire to deal with my existential dread bullshit. The dwarf forcibly dragged me outside yelling “You are a warrior, you see walking dead, you hit’em with yer sword!”

This was my introduction to the gaminess of RPG. When the enemy shows up, you ready your weapons and start rolling. When you’re in a tavern, people recognize you as adventurers and give you quests. When you go into a dungeon, there will be a boss fight and loot at the lowest level. Unless you are actually playing a game specifically designed for collaborative narration, the stories that happen at the gaming table will be predictably different from the stuff you might have read in a novel. Because most fantasy novels do not start with five of people armed to the teeth with magic artifacts going into a tavern on an off-chance someone will need a dragon slain, because that’s what they do for living.

The series has no shortage of violence and gore.

The DM of the Rings comic is a brilliant, humorous exploration of this specific clash between a classic book storytelling intersecting with collaborative gaming aspects of RPG. The narrative breaks down, because the player expectations and the game play structure of quests, battles and rewards inherent to the role playing systems. The players are always three pages ahead, always pre-empting and second guessing and always pushing against the boundaries of the story, because of course they are. So if you set out to re-create Tolkien at the gaming table, you are bound to fail. Conversely, going the other way around sometimes works out fine as illustrated by the comic itself.

That is basically the concept behind Rat Queens. It is a fantasy story that might as well have been a dramatized chronicle of your last D&D campaign. It features a genre savvy protagonists, who are self proclaimed “adventurers”, because of course they would be. They start in a tavern (where else) where they start a massive fight (as you do) and get thrown in jail. As a punishment they are given a quest to clear out some goblins from a cave near by, and they shuffle off, grumbling and complaining about insufficient loot prospects of the whole endeavor.

No, seriously. This page is like a visual representation of a critical hit table.

DM of the Rings is a cynical, and humorously jaded deconstruction of bad campaign, where neither the players nor the GM are on the same page with respect to what they are trying to accomplish. Rat Queens is something different: instead of poking fun at the disconnection between structured storytelling and role playing it embraces it. It is a love letter to D&D and the type of collaborative storytelling which happens at the gaming table. It is a faithful reconstruction of a good campaign: one in which both the GM and the players are on the same page, and just want to have fun and pull of a series of wacky hijinks and spectacular heroic battles because that’s what you do.

While the comic is heavily influenced by RPG, it is not particularly interested in saying anything about it. Gaming tropes and structures inform the narrative and the characters but the fourth wall is never broken, and there is very little meta-commentary with respect to the RPG medium. It is just a story about quirky, genre savvy adventurers set in a fantasy universe where there are quests, loot, convenient plot twists and where four person teams composed of a warrior, rogue, cleric and a mage are a common sight. It is a story about quirky, idiosyncratic characters existing in an oddball fantasy universe with familiar rules and tropes. It is fun, funny and occasionally rather clever.

Pleasant diversity, because why not.

It is also pleasantly diverse. The story takes place in the town of Palisade which is a racial and cultural melting pot that is full of all kinds of different people. Fantasy as a genre has always struggled with representation. Despite there being a concrete evidence of people of color being not only present but also often prominent and influential in the middle ages, popular culture usually usually represents medieval Europe as uniformly white and heterogeneous. This carries over to fantasy stories inspired by these period pieces. So we end up with settings where Elves, Orcs and dragon people are a common sight, but people with darker skin shades don’t even exist.

Rat Queens breaks away from that trend and embraces diversity. While it features the usual fantasy races such as Elves, Dwarfs, Orcs and Halflings “Smidgens”, it also draws a healthy number of prominent characters as people of color. Similarly, there are gay characters, because why wouldn’t there be? All of the protagonists, the titular Rat Queens (which is the name they given to their adventuring team – it’s a thing you do in that setting) happen to be women. This shouldn’t really be unique or surprising, but it is because I can’t think of a any other fantasy story which features an all-female cast of heroes.

I would like to direct your attention toward the horned demon puppy in this picture.

Also, Dwarf women grow beards in this setting, and shaving them is frowned upon by Dwarf society. Actually, the whole female beard thing is interesting because it makes an interesting commentary on how our own society polices women’s body hair. It’s not preachy, and it doesn’t hit you over the head with the message. The whole thing is written in a funny, charming way and when one of the heroes shaves her beard in act of defiance and rebellion against stringent, suffocating conservativeness of Dwarf society most readers will cheer her on. But the commentary is there, and it does sink in. It’s somewhat subtle, which is why I mentioned the series can be really clever when it wants to be.

Rat Queens is a fun series, but keep in mind it is not Saga. It is not at that level, but then again, few things are. Still, if you are looking for a light, amusing and occasionally clever fantasy romp heavily inspired by D&D, it is worth picking up. It is also a great example of how you can create a setting that is diverse and which sometimes can make points about social issues without sacrificing your ability to have potty mouthed characters who engage in drunken debauchery in between extremely bloody and violent battles with monsters.

You see, Ryan North already drew a comic about what would really happen if King Midas was real, and his foolish wish actually came true in a universe with actual real physics. He published those musings in his (rather popular) online comic strip Dinosaur Comics:

Original source: Dinosaur Comics #1355

By itself, this was merely an amusing idea – King Midas’s power being not just unfortunate punishment, but rather an unstop able, planet killing, civilization ending cataclysm. North kept toying with this idea after the web comic was done. Imagine, for example that some time after King Midas killed his home world, some extra-terrestrial civilization finds this planet sized gold nugget. What would they do with such a discovery? Would they use it for good or for evil?

This is precisely the plot of Midas Flesh. A galactic empire known as Federation discovers a mysterious planet that transmutes anything that touches it’s surface into solid gold. Unable to figure out the science behind the miracle, they decide that this discovery is deemed too dangerous to be made public. All mentions of the planet are expunged from official records, and military defense satellite array is installed in orbit to deter potential passers by from landing.

Few decades pass, and a small group of young political dissidents find information about it. Since each of them has a long list of grievances against the oppressive Federation regime they decide to find the planet and try to weaponize it somehow. It’s not that they are bad people, or are having some sort of Weyland-Yutani corporate greed episode. They are simply marginalized folks from conquered worlds, seeking a miraculous weapon that could help them defeat a powerful enemy against impossible odds.

Midas Flesh – First Encounter

This could have easily been a story of three white dudes. Or two white dudes, and a token action chick wearing skin-tight combat suit as it is often the case with these sort of concept driven SF stories. But it is not. The protagonists are two women, and a nerdy talking dinosaur. Because, of course, what else you would expect from a Ryan North story. To be completely fair however, the reptilian science geek is actually the least interesting of the three.

My favorite character is probably Fatima who happens to be a dark skinned Muslim woman who rocks a hijab, even under her space helmet. I love her design because it is a breath of fresh air – it’s just not something you see every day. In fact, I can’t remember last time I have seen a SF story which featured a female protagonist wearing a head scarf. Which is weird because I know several women who wear it IRL, but I never see it represented in the media. I can’t emphasize how bizarre it is that talking dinosaurs are more common in SF than Muslim women.

Midas Flesh Protagonists

The great thing about Fatima is that she is not defined by the hijab. It is never even explicitly mentioned or refereed to. She is funny, spunky, outgoing person with a big heart and a very strong moral compass. She is a social butterfly who easily connects with people and has friends and acquaintances within Federation power structures even while she is working to overthrow it.

The group’s leader, Joey, is a pretty cool character too. She is the kind of strong, confident person who can make hard decision, give difficult orders and take on full responsibility for the fallout. Where Fatima acts as the teams conscience, unwilling to compromise her morals, Joey is practical leader ready to choose lesser of two evils if necessary.

Cooper, the aforementioned dinosaur is mostly game for anything. His quest against the Federation is the most personal one. He has lost most of the trio and he is motivated by vengeance at some level. Despite being overall friendly goofball, he is ready to use the Midas flesh as a deadly weapon if it helps the team to achieve their goal.

Compared to the heroes, the antagonist is a rather bland, military bureaucrat who turns into full blown, mustache twirling super-villain the moment he lays his hands on the miraculous super-weapon:

Antagonist Antics

Fortunately, his antics are mostly peripheral to the main story. Most of the tension in the comic is derived from how the three protagonists come to terms with the deadly properties of the Midas flesh, and how they negotiate whether or not it is appropriate for them to use it. Which is a really interesting question: if you find a highly unstable weapon that can destroy an entire planet, should you use against your enemy? What if said enemy invaded and occupied your home world for decades? Would you keep it as a defensive measure? How would you ensure your allies don’t abuse it at some point in the future?

Despite being united by common plight and animosity towards the Federation, the protagonists do not see eye to eye on most of these subjects. They don’t even agree whether or not it is appropriate to deploy Midas flesh in self defense against a Federation battleship. This sort of character driven conflict is where Midas Flesh shines.

Deploying Midas Flesh Offensively

All things considered, Midas Flesh is worth checking out. The characters are great, the writing is witty and the art style is unconventional and evocative. The ending is a little weak, but personally I have no clue how I would end it either. So while it is underwhelming, it does not take away much from the core story.

Even if you don’t love it, it is only eight issues long. Comixology sells each issue for about $2 which is pretty affordable. It is published by Boom Box! which unlike Image Comics does not let Comixology offer CBR/PDF backups. So if you buy it through that service it does come encumbered with DRM and tied to the proprietary Comixology platform.

The New Batgirl

In retrospect it is kinda sad that this design is considered progressive. That a superhero in a leather jacket without a cleavage window and boots instead of ten inch combat stilettos is newsworthy. Unfortunately, we as a society we still have a tendency to draw our comic-book women almost exclusively from male gaze perspective.

I might have mentioned this elsewhere on this blog, but I will soon to be an uncle to a little girl. I’ve been thinking a lot lately on how I could one day introduce her to the world of general geekery / nerdism, and whether or not this would even be a good thing to do. Getting men and boys to be fans of dorky stuff is easy: you just show them how cool said stuff is and they will either get it or not. There aren’t many hidden downsides and there isn’t even that much stigma associated with it anymore. These days no one will really give you much shit for enjoying video games, or being excited for the latest Avengers movie. Besides, male nerds can easily find support systems helping them deal with any possible residual stigma attached to their hobbies and obsessions in the form of message boards, comic book stores, game stores and etc.. If you’re a girl however, being a geek almost always comes with a side order of abuse. Women are typically not welcome in traditional nerd communities. Game and comic book stores are usually man-spaces protected by vigilant gate keepers that insist on all women who enter proving they are not “fake geek girls”. The most vocal members of online communities usually welcome women by saying “tits or gfo” and police their brethren who refuse to join them in the harassment by calling them “white knights”.

Granted, there are communities that are friendly and welcoming to women, and there exist safe spaces where girls can geek out together. But unfortunately these are not the norm. When you introduce women into the world of fandoms and geek hobbies this is something you have to prepare them for and warn them about. If you don’t, chances are the first time they go out there and try to interact with the community they will get burned.

So this has been something on my mind lately, and it almost seems that the universe is conspiring to provide me with resources and solutions to make this work. To wit, Sam Maggs just wrote a book titled Fangirls Guide to the Galaxy which is essentially a survival guide for young women getting into all kinds of nerdy hobbies for the first time. It was written, illustrated and published by women and for women and is full of practical advice, first-hand accounts and it should be a fantastic resource.

I started thinking about geeky heroes that young girls could identify with, especially in the realm of comic books. It struck me how even the superheros who were designed from ground up to be (at least to a degree) feminist icons, like Wonder Woman or She Hulk still prance around battlefields in bikinis, and are still expected to contort their bodies into impossible configurations to satisfy the male gaze. And then the new Batgirl with her “leather, not spandex” jacket, combat boots showed up. And she makes a terrific counter-point to the common, sexed-up-vixen costumed female hero stereotype. She is not someone’s sidekick or a background decoration, nor is she some idealized icon. She is a character with quirks, flaws and an Instagram account full of goofy selfless.

And then, Marvel went “that’s cute” and dropped the news that Thor is now a woman.

This is Thor, deal with it.

That’s the big thing that I mentioned at the beginning of the post that has eclipsed Batgirls cool new get up.

I didn’t get just one cool female superhero this week. I got two, which is absolutely fantastic. As neat as Batgirl’s new costume and attitude might be, female Thor is real big news. Thor has always been sort of archetypically masculine and never actually had a proper distaff counterpart (Thorl Girl doesn’t count, right?) which makes him a perfect choice for this sort of gender swap. It is a bold statement which has been rippling throughout the community. My Twitter feed is full of comic book nerds, many of whom no longer follow the adventures of Marvel superheroes on paper, but this past week I have seen countless excited tweets about this development. Everyone has an opinion, and folks who have not bought a comic book in decades are now ready to jump back into it, even if only temporarily to check out this new development.

This plays into another thing I’ve been pondering recently: who is Marvel’s equivalent to Wonder Woman? DC and WB went on record saying they are too chicken-shit to make a modern Wonder Woman movie (which is probably for the best, considering the quality of post-Nolan DC movieverse) so Marvel can easily beat them to the punch. But which female super-hero could carry a solo movie of her own? The closest conceptual match to Wonder Woman we probably have is She Hulk but she is nowhere near as popular as the Amazonian queen. Not only that, the Hulk doesn’t translate well to the silver screen, unless written by Joss Wheedon and allowed to beat up Loki. If I had to pick the most iconic and popular Marvel heroine that people who are not into comics heard about, I would say Storm, but Marvel does not own the movie rights to her. We do have Black Widow, but she kinda lacks in the “super” department. This might be just wishful thinking, but I can’t help but wonder if this is Marvel’s way of strategically positioning themselves in such a way, that when DC eventually does make a fumbling attempt at a solo Wonder Woman feature, they will be able to respond in kind with “Thor 4” or whatever.

Chances are that angry comic dudebros will get their way eventually, and at some point Marvel is going to return Thor to the default male version. But you know what? This will still be cannon. We will always have this run where Thor was a woman. And that’s pretty great. I might be able to give my niece a Mjolnir toy one day, and she will be able to associate it with an A list Marvel hero who is like her, and who she can easily identify with. Not a distaff counterpart, not a sidekick, not a side member of a superhero team, but a fully fledged solo protagonist of a long running series.

Also, this happened, which is equally exciting:

New Captain America

I might be reading too much into it, but there is a lot of symbolism here. Think about this: Steve Rogers has been the embodiment of the American spirit for decades now. He was our best superhero, and the only one we saw fit to wear our flag as a costume. He was also a white man with blond hair, who was a member of the greatest generation. He is now passing his shield and costume to a black member of gen x. This is the passing of the guard, from old to young, from a place of privilege to that of none. This is great.

Granted, this is not entirely unexpected. Marvel has been experimenting with diversifying their super hero roster for a number of years now. People who were blindsided and outraged by the Thor and Cap announcements this past week must have slept through the time Miles Morales became the Ultimate Spider-Man, Kamala Khan became Ms. Marvel and Carol Denvers took over the mantle of Captain Marvel. Then again, those were less prominent fringe titles, whereas Captain America and Thor are established mega-heroes with their own movie franchises. The fact they are willing to make these changes to their most precious and valuable heroes indicates that they are done “experimenting” and are now committed to creating a diverse setting that’s open and welcoming to everyone, and not just white males.

I know that comic books tend to go in these cycles of good and bad periods. I see this as one of the good ones. Marvel is doing something really cool here: it is trying to break the mold and is actively working to subvert age old tropes, and go against stereotypes. Ultimately we all win, because having more diverse hero roster will allow them to tell new and interesting stories and approach old subjects from new perspectives.

Few months ago Comixology was running a promotion and giving away the first issue for free. I think that was before they got acquired by Ammazon and forced to rip out in-app purchases from their iOS reader. Either way I was able to snag it for free and file it away for the future. I didn’t read it back then because I was busy working my way through Prophet. Even as it was on my backlog, it was never really forgotten. Panels, quotes and costumes based on the comic were constantly showing up in my Twitter and Tumblr feeds suggesting it wasn’t just another popular series, but rather something akin to a cultural phenomenon sweeping through my corner of the geekosphere.

Saga Volume 1 Cover

Few days ago I finally decided to check it out. It was probably a mistake considering that it was the middle of Summer Steam Sale and that my credit card was already on the table ready for electronic purchases. Needless to say, I now own the three collected volumes and all the loose issues of Saga that are currently available for purchase. I get it now. I fully understand why everyone is so obsessed with this series.

Saga is a mix of SF and Fantasy

It is all about the characters. I would say that they are the main draw. Saga does the Game of Thrones thing where there are no real villains, and the antagonists are just as interesting and fun to follow as the protagonists. They are vibrant, colorful, beautifully penned by Fiona Staples and masterfully brought to life through Vaughn’s dialogue. More importantly they are all strikingly original. Almost every single named character has something about them that makes them instantly memorable. Vaughn eschews the classic kick the dog tactic of establishing villains and instead gives all of his antagonists interesting back-stories and endearing qualities that make them easy to empathize with if not intensely likable.

My favorite characters: The Will, Gwendolyn and the Lying Cat

At it’s very core, Saga is a story about an unlikely couple of star crossed lovers. Their home worlds have been at war for longer than anyone can remember, and their species hate each other so intensely they have co-opted most of the galaxy into a war effort to genocide one another. And yet, with a help of one trashy romance novel Alana and Marko find enough common ground to fall hopelessly and recklessly in love, elope together and have a baby. Seeing how, prior to their desertion, they have both been heavily decorated front line soldiers in the war, their romance is seen as a potentially damaging political statement by intelligence agencies on both sides of the conflict. Nearly simultaneously, but independently they decide to quietly eliminate the inconvenient family without alerting the public or creating political martyrs. The story is narrated by Alana and Marko’s daughter, who recounts the circumstances of her birth and the many hardships, dangerous adventures and narrow escapes her family endured.

The Stalk is probably one of the most iconic and memorable villains of the series.

Their pursuers are often more interesting than the main cast. There is a robotic prince with a PTSD and a midlife crisis, a ruthless freelancer/assassin whose strong moral fiber and a big heart constantly get in the way of actually doing his job and a slew of other minor players all of whom are beautifully fleshed out.

One of my favorite parts of the series is the effortless, organic way in which it treats diversity. It is a big topic because of the fact that a lot of our media severely lacks it. Saga doesn’t really have any human characters (except maybe The Will, though it is never established if he is actually human or some human-proxy species) most characters are very human like. Marko’s race, for example are basically people with horns, and Alana’s are people with wings. But instead of making all of them look like white folks (or white folks palette switched to blue or green as it is often the custom) the authors instead create a vastly diverse cast. For example, Marko and his family have distinctly Asian features whereas Alana seems vaguely Hispanic. Marko’s ex-fiance who becomes a prominent (btw, Gwendolyn & The Will OTP) antagonist is unmistakably black.

Alana and Gwendolyn

Saga is one of the few qworks of SF or Fantasy that actually acknowledges there can exist ethnic variations among non-human species, and uses that fact to enhance it’s character designs. The fictional people who populate the pages of the series not only come in all shapes and colors but also orientation. The two investigative reporters who are trying to cover Alana and Marco’s story are gay lovers hailing from a culture that is very prejudiced against homosexuals. The newest freelancer mercenary introduced in the latest issue is a fairly androgynous looking woman who dresses and carries herself like a hard boiled Film Noir detective sans the permanent five o’cock shadow.

None of this seems forced. Despite being a story of inter-species love Saga never really tries to be preachy or even appropriate. It is definitely R-rated, raunchy, violent, and irreverent comic. It does not pull it’s punches and it does not shy away from showing vice, brutality or prejudice. It’s characters are flawed, and they love, hate, make mistakes and sometimes do terrible things either by accident or out of spite. And that’s what makes it so great.

Saga Dialogs

It is a roller-coaster ride of excitement and emotion and you don’t always know who to root for because you want the protagonists to succeed so that the story can keep going, but you can’t bear the taught of any of the antagonists getting hurt.

If you are in the market for a fun, exciting and strikingly original, fast paced story I highly recommend it. It is by far one of the best comic book series I have read in a while. Out of all the nerdy media I consumed lately, it was Saga’s characters that stand out the most. Plus I love the setting, which is a crazy mish-mash of science fiction and fantasy where magic, spaceships, anthropomorphic animals and robot royalty with CRT monitors instead of heads can coexist together without clashing thematically.

Also, can someone please tell me where to buy a Lying Cat, because I really want one.

I think the main reason I fell out of love with the mainstream Marvel and DC comics was because their quality was inconsistent. The series could have a gripping story line that I cared about, drawn by artist I enjoyed one month, only to be handed over to completely different group of people with different sensibilities and different vision the next. Since then I’ve been gravitating more towards graphic novel type comics, or creator controlled series where the original vision and themes can be maintained without too much executive meddling.

There is actually a few comic series that I’ve been wanting to write about lately, but the most recent and up to date is Prophet. I stumbled upon this title while browsing a “best of” list published by comics alliance, and found it in the “most weirdest” section. So naturally I felt compelled to check it out. Luck had it, that the entire series was available in digital format on Comixology a mere click away.

Prophet #21 (which is the first issue of the 2012 re-launch).

Before I go any further, can we talk for a second about digital comics? Personally, I think the digitization of the medium is probably the best thing that could have ever happened for it. Back when I was inhaling Spider-Man and X-Men issues I had to actually physically go to the comic book store to purchase the latest issue. And if I wanted back-issues of something, I literally had to make some sort of an evil pact with the asshole behind the counter so that he could put in a special order for me. Today, if I want to read a comic series from start to finish, all I need to do is to sign up with one of the many online vendors, give them my credit card and suck the digital copies down the internet pipe. It is glorious.

Comixology is a bit like Steam for comics in that it is a publisher independent vendor who aims to be your one-stop-shop for digital picture books. They also have a quite evil tendency to give the first issue of each popular series away for free to wet your appetite. So if you want to check Proghet out, you can do it at no cost here.

If you clicked on the series link I posted above, you might be wandering what this bullshit is all about:

Prophet Series on Comixology includes the old issues 1-7

I guess this requires a little bit of history. The issues #1-7 available via Comixology are part of the old run of the comic. Prophet is actually an old Image Comics property from the early 90’s. Around 1992 Rob Liefeld was pitching a re-imagined version of Teen Titans to DC Comics, but the deal never fell through. Instead ditching the project however, he simply re-named and re-branded the characters and turned them into Youngblood super-hero team and published it via Image Comics. Prophet was Liefeld’s original creation was originally intended to appear in Marvel’s X-Force. But that never happened either, so he became a Youngblood instead, and later was spun off into his own series which lasted for seven issues which you can read via Comixology. It’s quite awful.

In 2012 Image Comics gave the character of Prophet (as well as the few other associated Youngblood heroes) to Brandon Graham and Simon Roy and essentially told them to go nuts with it. It was a completely dead franchise that wasn’t making any money, and which no one was particularly attached to, so the artist/writer team basically got an executive blessing to re-mould the hero into something entirely different. And they did exactly that. They stuffed their super-soldier hero into a cryo pod, and made him wake up thousands of years int the future, long after humanity went extinct.

Prophet Issue #21 – after awakening John Prophet finds himself on Earth which is no longer even remotely familiar to him after thousands of years of evolution changed the local wild life.

The 2012 series revival kept the original numbering, and launched with issue #21 which is confusing as all hell at first, but you quickly realize that Simon Roy’s distinctive art style is so different from the early 90’s stuff the two runs are impossible to mix up.

The first three issues follow the cryogenically unfrozen John Prophet who wakes up thousands of years too late to fulfill a mission assigned to him by what he refers to as the Earth Empire. Said empire is long gone and ruins of human civilization have crumbled to dust or have been overgrown by wildlife which have evolved beyond recognition. Prophet finds ruins of civilization, but they are not of human origin but rather structures build by some alien races that have also went extinct while he slumbered. The current masters of the planet seem to be members of a dozen different alien species (none of which is bipedal or humanoid) who have came from elsewhere in the galaxy, but have since then reverted to a low-tech, tribal lifestyle.

The Caravan from Issue #22

What starts as a story of a man out of time trying to find his purpose in a world of organic cities built by burrowing inside a carcass of a living space ship, or caravans that refine organic matter into a super-strong building material by passing it through the digestive systems of multiple gigantic beasts of burden in a sequence, quickly spirals out of control into something much bigger. It becomes a story of an ancient galactic war which once almost destroyed the entire universe, and left most of it in ruins. A story about rekindling old alliances, and re-awakening ancient heroes to face a new, unimaginably powerful threat. A story about impossibly ancient space gods battling for supremacy using mortals as pawns.

John Prophet re-unites with his old allies (an immortal cyborg who seeks to re-discover his long lost humanity, a living root addicted to fire water, a lizard woman assassin and an egg shaped battle droid) and seeks to once again defend the universe from the dreaded Earth Empire that once almost destroyed it. And because the the comic is firmly set in the Image Comics continuity, albeit in very distant and previously unexplored future, other members of the Youngblood team make small but memorable and unusual cameos. For example, Badrock who started as a teenager with a skin made of living rock is now an immortal, omnipresent space deity whose planet-sized children are scattered throughout the universe, slumbering while alien races build cities on top of their bodies.

Badrock’s Space Children

The series is deliciously weird, twisted and strikingly original. It’s weirdness factor is reminiscent of David Lynches Dune with an artwork that is probably best described as something Van Hamme would draw after going on a 16 year long crack cocaine binge. Some issues are very much Conan the Barbarian but in space, and with crazy-SF concepts instead of magic. Other issues are twisted space opera full of eldritch space gods that make Marvel’s esoteric pantheon of great powers look bland and uninteresting in comparison.

The writers and artists have an incredible knack for creating a universe that feels old, lived in, and filled with mystery and rich mythology. Pretty much everything in Prophet-verse is old, decrepit and ravaged by past wars. Ancient, crumbling mega-structures, cities built on calcified and shattered bodies of dead space gods, a flotilla of spaceships damaged in forgotten war converted into a sprawling zero-g metropolis. Every sett piece is stranger than the previous one. And as soon as you think you have a good grasp on the setting they switch it up and make it weirder. Prophet is probably the most imaginative, and evocative comic I have read in years.

These are characters introduced later in the series. The robotic Diehard is also a former Youngblood hero, now turned to an immortal cyborg who rebuilds his humanity by installing human organs in his chassis which he harvests from John Prophet clones he kills in battle. The Lizard girl is a young assassin who swore to fight for Old Man Prophet when he rescued her from prison.

The story itself is interesting, albeit a bit convoluted. Prophet is first and foremost concerned with showing, rather than telling. You have to piece the plot together yourself from little bits of exposition here and there, and everything is seeped in mystery and feels like a one big puzzle. A puzzle that may or may not have a real solution as the series is not finished yet. But even if it ends on an open ended and vague note, it will still have been a hell of a ride.

It is not devoid of interesting characters. In fact, once the Old Man Prophet enters the play and starts to re-unite his team the story really picks up. Before that, the standard routine seems to be very Conan-esque. Prophet arrives somewhere, fucks shit up, then leaves. But when the original progenitor of the Earth Empire’s clone army wakes up from his slumber, the plot thickens, becomes more complex and introduces really cool characters such as Diehard or Brother Root. While the series is most memorable for it’s weirdness, and it’s off-beat ideas and set pieces, the few quiet moments of bonding and character development between these heroes are executed extremely well.

I highly recommend checking it out. Especially since you can read the first issue online for free. From what I have heard, the series will be wrapping up this year, so it is not one of these endless sprawling series that meander until they get cancelled. As far as I can tell, the creators intend to make it into a cohesive, self-contained story collected in four to five collected volumes.

Please note that garbing the pictures for this review was a nostalgia overload me. The first time I read this series was around the sophomore year in high school. It’s crazy how the time flies.

Here is my pitch: if you read one manga series in your lifetime, I highly recommend making it Yukito Kishiro’s Battle Angel Alita. There are many great manga books out there, but this one is my pick. It’s deep, it has a great story, great characters, very original setting and it talks about some very interesting issues that are relevant to my interests.

Cover of first issue

Let’s talk about the setting first, because I think this is the one feature that sets it apart. Earth is a desolate wasteland, ravaged by some long forgotten wars. Tiphares (or Zalem, depending on the translation you are reading), one of the last cities on the planet is a large disk hanging off from the sky. It is actually anchored to an old, disused space elevator. It is the last bastion of high technology, culture and a comfort. It is a lush paradise compared to the ravaged surface of the planet. But if you are not a citizen, you are not allowed in. There is no immigration process and no exceptions. In fact, the inhabitants of the city are so xenophobic that they destroyed the base of the elevator cutting it off from the surface, and they employ an army of robots to shoot down everything that flies (this includes birds).

The city is supplied via a system of completely automated, and heavily defended farms, mines, factories and resupply depots. Resources are sent up to the city via hanging cables and waste is simply dropped down from the center of the hub. As you can imagine, there is a huge garbage dump directly below the floating city. This dump is full of high technology junk, cybernetic parts and treasures that you wouldn’t otherwise find anywhere else. Unsurprisingly, a lot of people choose to live around that dump, making a living scavenging and trading in Tipharean junk. The sprawling slums that grew below the hanging city in the sky don’t even have a proper name – people call it “the Scrapyard”. The living conditions are poor, food and medicine is scarce, medical care is poor, but cybernetic junk junk is cheap and plentiful. It literally rains from the sky. In most cases it is cheaper to replace failing body parts with artificial ones than it is to pay for proper medication and surgery required to mend the frail flesh. And that’s what people did. Eventually a network effect kicked in, and having a flesh body started to became a liability. A meat-bag human just can’t compete with a cyborg whose artificial body is much stronger, faster and more resilient. The Scrapyard is a city of machines, with most it’s inhabitants sporting fully artificial bodies of all shapes and sizes.

Tipharies

Tipharean factories located within the Scrapyard are the closest thing to government and law enforcement that exists there. Only the machines that maintain them don’t care much about the local population. They fiercely defend the city’s supply routes and enforce the no-flying rule, but have little interest in policing the native inhabitants. Emergence of violent gang leaders, serial killers activity or other high profile crime does register with them though. It destabilizes the region and causes social tensions that could interfere with the operation of the factories. So they put out bounties the heads of most notorious criminals, and let the Scrapyard regulate itself.

Factories and their bounty system

That’s the setting. It’s a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk with a cyborg fetish. It is probably worth mentioning that initially all the action takes place in the scrapyard. You don’t actually get to see the city of Tiphares or it’s inhabitants until much, much later. So right of the bat, you have a lot of delicious mysteries. Who built the city. Is it really a paradise on Earth? If it is a space elevator, does it still work?

Now for the story: Ido Daisuke, an idealistic, good natured cyber-surgeon finds a discarded head and torso of a young girl in the scrap heap. He fixes her up to the best of his ability, but unfortunately the time spent in the junk pile did cause some brain damage. Alita wakes up only with ragged scraps of cryptic memories she is unable to stitch together into something coherent. Her past is shrouded in mystery. For example, despite her small stature and youthful appearance she turns out to be a master of Panzer Kunst – the strongest of the cyborg martial arts, specializing in taking down large, heavily armored opponents.

Found in the scrap pile

This martial art is actually a fairly cool idea in itself – it’s based around kinetics, gravity and resonance frequencies. It uses high speed aerial attacks and the the weight density of cybernetic body to put maximum kinetic energy on a small surface area to punch holes in heavy armor, or failing that to exploit resonance frequencies of common metal alloys to damage soft biological organs behind it.

So the protagonist is a highly trained combat specialist with (likely a veteran of some long forgotten war) a face and psyche of a young teenage girl, and her memories wiped almost entirely clean. She is a blank slate, and she tries to find her place in the violent, poverty stricken Scrapyard. At first she works as Ido’s assistant, but soon enough she realizes she can use her skills for bounty hunting work. Along the way she learns some pretty hard lessons – that you can’t pay your way or sneak into Tipharies, that you should not fuck with the factories that supply it, that you can’t be a big shot bounty hunter without pissing off the wrong people and having them lash out at your loved ones, that Scrapyard is a place where most dreams and hopes come to die, and etc…

Here is the thing that makes this managa series great: Kishiro is able to combine extreme violence, technology fetish and philosophical discourse in one neat package. The pages of his comic are full of technical diagrams and footnotes explaining how the technology is supposed to work in his world, and he is not afraid to ask interesting questions. Like, what does it mean to be human? What happens to the human psyche when you start replacing his flesh with hard, cold steel? How do people cope with loosing their flesh bodies when they must take a fully cybernetic body due to injuries or medical problems? What happens to your soul when you digitize your consciousness? What does it mean to be a human? This stuff is right up my alley, don’t you think? Some of his ideas are very, very interesting. If you recall, I mentioned one of the big twists from this series here.

It is not uncommon to see this sort of cross-sections in this manga

His stories are heavy on existentialism. His characters search for meaning, and frequently come up empty. One of the focal themes of the series is fate, and destiny. Are there such things? Can you take your destiny into your own hands, and own it? Or is it something that owns you and you are powerless to resist? In a truly unique fashion Kishiro pits fierce Nietzhean individualism against concepts of predestination and karma. All of it plays out against the backdrop of a coming of age story: you get to watch the young amnesiac Alita grow up, experience love, loss, grow bitter, disillusioned, lose herself, find herself again and grow stronger.

It’s a smart, thought provoking and deep cyberpunk/science fiction with pictures. There are 9 books in the series, and I highly recommend reading all of them. The third book (the motorball one) is arguably the weakest one, but if you really want to see the secrets of Tipharies and Alita’s past revealed you need to read the whole thing.

Note on translations: depending on the version you are reading, the hanging city may be called either Tipharies or Zalem, and the protagonist may be either Alita or Gally. American translators swapped bunch of names around for some strange reason leading to all kinds of confusion. In this review, I used the names from the books I actually own. Keep in mind I bought these in high school – so newer editions might have switched back to the original, proper names.

There is also a prequel series called The Last Order, but I can’t really say anything about it since I have not read it.

Sadly, I no longer have any copies of Funky Koval and Thorgal. They got borrowed and not returned, or still slowly rot at the bottom of a book case at my mom’s house, and ocean away from my current location. Fortunately I kept a copy of Chninkel and I was able to re-read it once again some time ago – this time around as a grown ass man. And you know what?

Chninkel - The Cover

It’s still pretty damn good. Violent, bloody, full of explicit sexuality, irreverent, dirty but also rather clever, imaginative, funny and well written. I’d highly recommend it to all comic enthusiasts, and manga lovers who are willing to venture out and check out European comic scene. Sadly, up until now I could never find an English version of the book.

In the last few weeks however I begun to see it pop up everywhere. Apparently a scanlation group Manga-Sketchbook has released an unofficial English translation very recently. And since the internet is a great machine for caching and copying data the book has been replicated on dozens of different websites.

Chninkel - The 3 Armies

If you are interested in reading it, I recommend the copy at Manga Volume. You can read it right in your browser with a clean, and easy to use interface. If that’s down there is a similar online copy at FindManga.com, AnumeA, Manga Gamestotal and AnyManga.com.

If you hate these online readers you can always download all 10 chapters from Reality Lapse here. The whole thing is broken down into 10 zip files which makes it a bit inconvenient but that’s what we have for now.

Chninkel - J'On meets the elders

I scanned through the scanlation and it seems faithful to the original, but the translation seems a bit shaky in places. Granted, I only read a Polish translation myself (the book was originally written in French). Still, the English version of J’On (the main character) looses a of his dry, sarcastic wit. Still, Manga Sketchbook folks did an amazing job either way. Translating fiction is extremely difficult – and despite popular belief it has nothing to do with fluency in a given language. It requires a lyrical soul, strong literary intuition and a way with words in the destination language. A translator has to not only faithfully convert messages between two languages. She has to be able to replace un-translatable local idioms to equivalent ones, be able to carry over the puns, wordplay and innuendos of the original without losing the overall message and much more. Translating a graphic novel is a herculean task, and anyone attempting to do it in their free time should be given props.

The story takes place in a fantasy world of Daar ravaged by a centuries long war waged between armies of the three immortal rulers of the realm. No one even remembers the reason for the war, or how it started. It is simply a fact of life that the armies of the immortals must battle every time Daar’s two suns meet in the sky. Like clockwork their armies roll out, and engage in ritualized mindless slaughter. There are no goals, no objectives, no strategy – just three armies clashing at a battlefield and fighting until no one is left standing.

Kolds - the evil Dwarfs

After one of such battles, J’On – a sole survivor left to die on a battlefield has a vision. A creator of the universe appears to him (taking a form suspiciously similar to the Monolith from Clarke’s Space Odyssey) and tasks him with ending the war. If he fails to do it the world will be destroyed.

The only problem is that J’On is a Chninkel – member of a diminutive slave race, and as such he has no say in the grand politics of the warring nations. His people are used as cheap labor, cannon flooder and often as living foot stools. Member of the higher races would quicker kill a Chninkel than to listen to his advice. How could someone as J’On bring about peace on a world that knew only war for centuries? Why would a creator deity choose such an unlikely creature to be his prophet?

J'On and the Immortals

The answer is simple – a creator of billions of worlds has no time or patience to look for a better candidate. J’On was around, and thus he got the job. Being a slave is irrelevant, because in the eyes of the creator all living things are equal.

And so, J’On becomes the unlikely hero and a messiah of his people. He sets out on a heroes journey, gathers followers, disciples, performs miracles (usually by accident or using magic, rather than the divine might he was supposedly granted) and pisses off all the immortals in the process.

Rosinski and Van Hamme take the Unlikely Hero trope and combine it with the Messianic Archetype. In fact, J’On’s story parallels that of another famous messiah quite closely. It is basically a story about a savior who was born to a bizarre fantasy world as a lowly slave, has no divine origin, no divine powers, no confidence and no inclination to be a messianic figure. What if the savior was just a cowardly, shifty, horny little guy who just wants to be left alone.

I highly recommend giving it a read. The black and white artwork is excellent, the world is captivating, imaginative and demented and the story is well written and executed flawlessly. Its’ a sweeping epic, broad in it’s scope but fast paced, interesting and clever. If you were ever curious about the European comic book scene, read Chninkel. It’s a classic!

Oh, and a word of warning: the book can be a bit raunchy in places. Some panels are definitely NSFW. I wouldn’t even say anything but after living in US for more than 10 years not I know some people can be a bit touchy in regards to any kind of nudity, even if it’s hand drawn. So, if you are more on the prudish side, or easily offended – handle with care. Otherwise dig in! It’s free, and I believe it is somewhat legal. To my knowledge the book was never released in English so the scanlation doesn’t infringe on anyone’s copyright yet. At least I don’t think so. Well… It’s a gray area.

Today I wanted to talk about webcomics. There are millions of them out there, and they all pretty much suck. Among all the garbage however there are few gems that consistently deliver high quality humor. I picked out couple of my favorites to share with you here

XKCD

XKCD proves that you do not really have to draw well to produce a very popular comic. It uses stick figure drawings, but what it lacks in artistic polish, it more than makes up in content. XKCD is consistently brilliant, hilarious and thought provoking. It delivers a very high brow humor and it’s common themes are science jokes, unix gags and geek culture. The name itself is a meaningless acronym which Randall Munroe then assigned to a very large number you get after calling the Ackerman Function with Graham’s Number as both arguments. This should probably give you an idea which kind of humor you can find here. My favorite is probably this joke – I actually own a t-shirt with it.

Abstruse Goose

My second favorite after XKCD. It serves a very similar brand of geeky, high brow humor but can be edgier. It sometimes ventures into philosophy, theology or sheer absurdity. It consistently delivers a concentrated dose of smart, academic comedy.

Dresden Codak

Probably the only comic I follow which actually had an ongoing story arc. As opposed to the two titles listed above, Dresden Codak has a stunning graphical style. It also tends to be wordy at times, but it will captivate you. It is funny, smart and thought provoking. Here are some of my favorite stand-alone panels that do not belong to the story arc – they should give you an idea about the sheer brilliance of this title: Dungeons and Discourse, Traversing the Luminous Aether, Summer Dream Job and of course Being a Zebra. Also, the “Hob” story arc deals with time travel, and singularity which is win. Aaron Diaz – the creator of this comic also invented the Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day.

The Perry Bible Fellowship

I don’t know how Nicholas Gurewitch does it, but he has consistently been able to condense weapons grade humor into small 3-4 panel strips with striking, intelligent and often disturbing punchlines. One of my favorites is Bee. Unfortunately the updates seem to be slow lately.

Piled Higher and Deeper

This is pretty much a mandatory reading for anyone who is or ever was in grad school. At one point I was convinced that Jorge Cham has a hidden cam somewhere in the lab where I toiled on my thesis. This guy knows academia idiosyncrasies inside out and he is not afraid to lambaste them with full force. The comic does have a cast of recurring characters and a slowly moving meta-story which is fortunately secondary to the jokes.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Yet another great 3-4 panel comic with random gags which range from high brow, to toilet humor and shock punchlines. Most panels are well thought out, and jokes tend to be on the smart side. Consistently funny.

Darths and Droids

A comic inspired by the excellent DM of the Rings and it revolves around the same concept. It takes screen shots from the Star Wars movies and adds funny dialogue. The premise is that the whole thing is a RPG game – what we see in the shots is what the imagined world the Game Master describes to the players. The characters themselves are played by regular people, who often speak out of character, quote Monty Python and make fun of the huge plot holes in the story. They started with Panthom Menace footage, now they are doing Attack of the Clones. The plan is to do all 6 films so they have lot’s of material to work with.

Honestly, this comic is actually the first good thing that came out of the Star Wars prequels.

Stolen Pixels

This comic deserves a honorable mention because it was made by Shamus Young who also made DM of the Rings. This time he uses screen captures from video games. You have to love it, because Shamus is one of the few people who has the guts, the wits and the audience to ruthlessly critique video game industry time and time again for their idiotic DRM policies. You should also check out his blog if you are not reading it yet.

That’s all I have for today. Now it’s your turn. What is your favorite webcomic? Please post links to the stuff you like in the comments. Just keep in mind that my spam filter gets angry and will yell at you if you post multiple URL’s in the comment field. A single link should be fine though. I’m just letting you know – if you are running into trouble, just mention the comic using the title or a set of keywords we could google to find it.

I got introduced to Marvel and DC universes later than most American kids. I grew up on difficult, gritty stories filled with pointless violence, philosophical turmoil, senseless rape, murder and characters forced to make difficult choices and face moral dilemmas that were troubling and thought provoking. When American comic books hit the Polish market I started buying them because as everyone I was fascinated with this brand new world of super heroes. They lived in a whole different universe – in this bizarre fairy tale land where truth and justice always prevailed. Some stories were good, some were campy – but the characters were what drew us in. They were make out of pure awesome – they were powerful, and exotic with their silly wester idealism, and their strange problems. Furthermore they were cultural icons, and symbols recognized everywhere. So I was hooked for better or for worse.

The interesting thing about this new world of super powered beings was that they were all connected. There were crossovers, guest appearances and etc. Marvel universe was a whole ecosystem filled with all these strange characters and stories in one book could affect lives of other characters with their own independent series. So while on the surface, the world of superheroes looked simple, and glossy – it was actually incredibly complex and required full immersion to fully grok it in it’s totality.

It’s actually quite intriguing to observe how these ecosystems work, and endlessly recycle and re-invent the same characters to adopt them to new stories and make them relevant to the present times. There are some really good stories, and some really crappy ones out there but at some point I got tired of the weekly mill of stories. I think what eventually killed my interest was the and constant flux of writers, and artists – shifts in quality, frequent retcons and changes in theme and direction – and of probably a lack of closure. I currently don’t follow any of the mainstream Marvel or DC series, but I do remember them fondly. But once I groked them, it was time to move on. I like good stories – which have a beginning, and end and artistic or literary vision and concept behind them.

Wrote this very long introduction to give you some context because recently I got my hands on a stack of Sandman comic books. It is the complete collection I believe – the series closes in 75 issues. I have read around 30 issues and so far I’m enjoying the hell out of it.

I have heard about Sandman before (always mentioned with this soft of reverence reserved only for classics of the highest caliber) but I have always thought it was a self contained series that lies outside the DC continuity. Surprisingly, it is not – I guess this just shows how much I was paying attention to this universe. Neil Gaiman firmly anchored his masterpiece it within the DC universe but was by no means contained by it.

The main character is Morpheus – the personification of dreams. Not really a god but one of “endless” who represent primeval forces such as death, dreaming, destiny or desire. They are said to be older than gods, and the only true immortal beings (as gods may die or become forgotten but the endless remain). He rules over people’s dreams, nightmares and is also patron of storytelling. As you could imagine, a character like that is very detached from reality as we know it. He exists on a different plane of existence and visits realms that are closed to mere mortals. And yet, when he manifests himself in our reality he connects with the mainstream DC universe in subtle and yet noticeable way. He meets John Constantine, interacts with members of the Justice League and battles with Dr. Destiny. Gaimain even retcons all the other DC Sandmans to be facets, or aspects of his essence or personality.

The issues are either self contained, or form story arcs which span several volumes. They all form a continuity, but you could theoretically read each “story” individually. And most of them are very good. They are weird, reflective, metaphorical and thought provoking. Let me give you some examples of the ones that really stuck in my memory.

There is a story there about a burned out writer, who captures a greek muse and keeps her in his house under a key. He uses her to crank out one bestseller after another and gain international fame and recognition. He also routinely rapes her justifying it by telling himself that “she is not even human, so it’s ok”. Interesting, twisted but good reading.

Another twisted story features a Cereal Convention – a convention for serial killers. Brutal, psychopathic murderers from all over the country all meet at a small hotel in the middle of nowhere to discuss their passion. They have discussion panels, cocktail hour, they dance, mingle and brag about their exploits. Only that there are some guests staying at the hotel who are not killers but travelers, who had to stop there for a night due to unforeseen circumstances.

In issue 19, Morpheus contracts William Shakespeare to perform his play A Midsummer Night’s Dream he wrote under his inspiration in front of the real Auberon the kind of Fairies and his retinue. This book actually won the World Fantasy Award back in 1990.

Or, for example consider the following: what would happen if Lucifer decided to close down hell, and release all the damned one day? What’s worse he gives you the key to the now vacant hell. Next thing you know, you have a crowd of different deities, and mystical beings at your front door, all trying to buy the key from you. Norse gods want to use hell to escape Ragnarok. Banished daemons want their domain back. Egyptian gods, Fairies and forces of Order and Chaos and angels from Heaven also throw in their bids. And all of them have very attractive and enticing offers. Who would you sell it to?

Gaiman really plays with conventions, themes and jumps back and forward in time. One story is told completely from a perspective of a house cat. Another happens in the middle of African desert where a boy goes through the rights of initiation practiced by his tribe. All of them are connected by the central figure of Morpheus who is not always the protagonist, but always a key character in a given tale.

The artwork quality varies. The covers by Dave McKean are really striking. They are really not something you would expect to see on a comic book cover, but considering the stories they contain they fit quite well. The artwork inside varies as different artists tackled the task of illustrating the series. The style they all try to follow is similar though. They all stay away from photorealism, or typical DC/Marvel super-hero style. The art is gritty, dark and often intentionally sloppy. There is a lot of play with shadows, colors and some creative uses of inter-connected panels. If I had to sum it up in two or three words, I would say “oneiric surrealism” or something among those lines. But it changes depending on the topic. For example, issue 19 mentioned above, is kept in a much warmer, colorful and realistic style than most of the other books.

It will probably take me a while to work my way through the rest of this stack. If you like graphic novels, and you are looking for some solid storytelling, smart and thought provoking and often controversial, and difficult plot lines you should definitely give Sandman a try. Even if you don’t like comic books, you should at least give it a cursory read. I highly recommend it.

[tags]sanman, vertigo, dc, comic books, morpheus, dream, endless, neil gaiman[/tags]