Comic Review: Once Upon a Time Machine

I love a good anthology but the problem is publishers rarely do them these days.  The idea of bringing together a variety of writers and artists to contribute variations on a central theme guided by the singular vision of a central editor means that there will always be something for everyone and if you don’t like one story don’t worry; another story by a different writer/artist combination will be coming up shortly.  The newest 400+ page anthology by Dark Horse is that rare book where you won’t be skipping over certain stories as each one of the over 25 different tales is a wonderful little reading experience all on its own.  I firmly believe that this collection of stories will help to solidify Dark Horse Comic’s reputation as one of the most important producers of comics literature today.

The original intent of fairy tales was to impart values or lessons upon young children in a way that is entertaining for them by using characters the young listeners can relate to.  Why else are the main characters all so young in the stories?  What is the story of Pinocchio if not a way to remind young boys of the importance of being good wrapped in an entertaining package?  That version might have been fine 200 years ago but what child now has ever seen a wooden toy much less played with one?  What if, instead of a wooden boy, Pinocchio were a computer program learning how to interact with He wants to be a real little boy.humans and what would he need to learn to be a good son to his “father”?  Now THAT is a version of Pinocchio that children today can read and enjoy.  These are the types of questions editor Andrew Carl and producer Chris Stevens have charged this gathering of over 90+ writers and artists to answer.

 Some of these stories are just plain silly while others will leave you pondering what it means to be human.  Some will cause you to put down the book and think about how hard it can be to go forward another day for someone else despite your own pain or how your story might not be about you at all.  The majority of the stories are just too short and I wanted more, but that’s a good problem to have.  When you leave the reader wanting more that means you’ve done something right.

Unfortunately I do have two major problems with the book.  First off a lot of the entries are singleCome on, just TELL me you don’t want to know more about this story. page splashes that are incredibly cool but that’s all we get.  How can you tease me with something as awesome as a Humpty Dumpty pin up by Ryan Ottley and leave me hanging?  I can only hope that if there is a volume two these pin ups serve as a spring board for the next round of tales.  

My second problem with this collection is that there is no back story.  And by that I mean:  How were the writers and artists chosen?  How were the assignments handed out?  What was the genesis of the project?  If you do an anthology like this I think the back story, the in between, and the thoughts of the editors is every bit as vital as the stories themselves and without it this volume only feels mostly completed.

Should you buy this then?  Well it is $25.00 but for that price you get over 400 pages of story none of which wear out their welcome and in my opinion comics needs a break from the endless parade of meaningless mega crossovers that happen every other year and need to get back to doing what they can do better than any other medium: give adult and children both a wonderful reading experience.  And if the promotional video found here doesn’t make you want to read it nothing I say can change your mind

Comic Review Quick Hits

      Welcome back readers to a special Halloween edition of Comic Quick Hits.  This week I thought I’d celebrate my favorite holiday by reviewing a few horror titles you might want to give a look at.  Pull up a chair turn all the lights on and then continue….

The Marquis: Danse Macabre

Take a look at this cover. What about the cover by Guy Davis doesn’t make you want to read this book now? I mean seriously take another look, there isn’t a single square inch that doesn’t ooze with cool.

This little slice of black and white awesomeness is about a man in 1800’s France who is given a mask that allows him to see demons in our world as well as weapons with which to send them back to Hell. And they are given to him by the forces of Heaven……….or are they?

The Marquis: Danse Macabre is one of those rare books that forces you to think about Heaven and Hell and the ramifications of working for either side and it does it while you are absorbing the awesome fight scenes. There is a second volume I will be devouring this weekend and from what I’ve read there will eventually be three more.

Go pick this up and give it a shot if you read the whole thing and don’t like it i’ll buy the copy from you*.

*Offer not valid for residents of North or South Carolina.

The Master of Rampling Gate

OK, so apparently Anne Rice managed to beat Stephanie Meyer to the sweet money honeypot that is stories about strangely feminine-like vampires and the women who love them by a few years. Honestly if someone told me that Ms. Meyer wrote this as a warm-up to Twilight I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.

This cover promised me something cool and the last time I was lied to this big my parents were telling me about Santa. I’d like to provide you with a review but honestly all you need to know is a strangely almost-androgynous, tortured vampire falls in love with a mortal female, blah, blah blah….If you like Twilight I’d give this a shot, however if you have fully-functioning Government-issued man parts give this a BIG skip.

Pigeons From Hell

Everyone knows Robert E Howard for his Conan books.  But his writing also went WELL beyond the sword and sorcery genre he helped create and wrote a scary little slice of Southern Gothic Horror called Pigeons From Hell.  Don’t let the cutsey title fool you though, this is one scary comic. The set-up is familiar to anyone who’s watched more than one horror movie in their life.  Two New Englanders John Branner and his friend Griswell spend the night at an abandoned Southern plantation mansion. John awakens to find his friend gone but sees him coming down the stairs as an animated corpse with a hatchet in his hand and a gaping wound to his head.  John comes back the next day with the police and despite being the main suspect he begins to unravel the history of this one-proud house and the evil within that drove it into decay. 

Eclipse Comics put out this creepy as hell adaptation that took Scott Hampton over two years to complete and it shows.  Every page is crammed full of detail and I spot something new each time I look at it.  For example there is one panel where the main character is struggling to see what is at the top of the stairs and I caught myself staring into the darkness at the top of the stairs along with him hoping in vain to catch a glimpse of what horror awaited us.  Take a look at the bottom of this post to see what I mean if you dare.

 Copies seem to be hard to come by and while I got lucky the copies online seem to start at $15.00 and go from there.  I cannot recommend this title enough.  Do not, and I am repeating, DO NOT read this after the sun goes down. When Stephen King says “Pigeons From Hell (is) one of the finest horror stories of our century” take his word.

Comic Review Quick Hits

Pizzeria Kamikaze

One of the great questions of life is what happens when we die and unfortunately the only way to know is to die. Etger Keret takes a unique approach to the subject in this very odd slice of indy comic goodness called Pizzeria Kamikaze.

Mordy has killed himself only to find he now “lives” in a world populated only by suicide victims and he now works in a pizzeria and when he finds out that his girlfriend in the living world killed herself and is hanging around someone called The Messiah King he sets off to find her.

I like the artwork and how it’s black and white with highlights of silver everywhere; which give it an otherworldly feel. And I like the premise of where people go when they die being just another version of being alive.

The problem is that Etger spends all his time setting up the ground rules for his world that he doesn’t get a chance to fully explore the world. No sooner does he get his world building over with than the book is over.

Is this worth reading? I’d say the art and the story premise make this a must read even if the execution is less than steller. I do have one question I REALLY wanted answered though. When this one character decides to kill himself in the afterlife we are told that he went to a place even worse than that one. What was THAT place like?

The Supernaturalists

The now seemingly defunct Mad Yak Press put out this sexy little slice of vampire-y goodness by writer Patrick Neighly and it’s not too bad. Personally I feel like vampires are pretty well played out but every now and then someone finds a few new notes to an old tune and the result can be satisfying. 

Detective Edgar Drake is hunting a killer in 1920’s New York City.  It’s not just any killer though but one who kills his victims in the manner of a vampire.  The deeper his investigation goes the bigger the conspiracy grows until it threatens not only to destroy Edgar but the beautiful Esme who has decided to appoint herself his sidekick and lover.

The writer does a surprisingly good job of building a very believable vampire underworld society but he takes too much time to build the world and not enough on the characters themselves.  I think that if Neighly had gone on to write another couple of stories those faults would have been fixed.

Regardless of whatever faults the story might have the very idea of a 1920’s film-noir style detective story with vampires and a ton of twists is reason enough to go search this out.

Lost Girl

First off let me say this is NOT the porn comic by Alan Moore darn it.  If it was perhaps I would have enjoyed this more.  Let me say that this book was definitely worth the .25 I paid for it.  So this teenage girl keeps running into this “bad girl” while on a vacation, at least I think she does. Maybe the girl was just a figment of her growing sexuality. Maybe she was just crazy. The problem is the book is WAY too clever in the way it tries to be “literature” and I guess the author N Kanan thought it wasn’t worth his time to provide any answers. Maybe we are supposed to provide the answers ourselves.  Or maybe the ending is just unknowable.  With that said the other good thing is that this book only took 20 minutes to read because of the small number of pages so my time wasn’t completely wasted.