Planetary - a decade to tell the tale... and worth it.

Planetary

Written by Warren Ellis, Art by John Cassaday, Colours by Laura Martin, David Baron

DC Comics / Wildstorm



Although it started in April 1999, various problems with the series meant that the final issue; 27, was eventually published in 2009. It took a decade to finish the series and it was well worth the wait.

I love it perhaps more than I should. It’s something I go back to regularly, and will always re-read it at least once per year. This year, as a special Christmas present to myself I decided that, even though I had the whole series as Hardbacks, I really, really wanted to get the beautiful Absolute editions.

Expensive but oh so worth it. My Boxing Day was spent engrossed, yet again, in a wonderful world created by Ellis, Cassaday, Martin and Baron. The huge pages make the art so much more impressive than it already was at normal comic size and Ellis’ ideas fly even greater at this scale.



(John Cassaday’s beautiful cover to the final issue of Planetary)

Warren Ellis’ Planetary is a beautiful, optimistic, humanist, sentimental masterpiece, a magnificent superhero fantasy mythology with each self contained chapter taking some aspect of genre fiction and spinning a tale of awe and wonder. This love story of 20th Century fictions just has so much going on- Doc Savage’s pulp heroes, John Woo style Hong Kong action cinema ghost stories, giant irradiated Japanese monsters, Steranko era Nick Fury super spies, Sherlock Holmes and much more. But taken as a whole, as one supremely interconnected, expansive story it becomes Ellis’ masterpiece with it’s signature style of vast, open storytelling, tech obsessions, fast, witty dialogue and far reaching ideas of optimism and hope.

And every step of the way artist John Cassaday’s classical artwork perfectly visualises every wonderfully strange idea. It may have taken many, many years to complete the series’ 27 issues and many of these delays may have been art led. But never has the concept of “good or on time?” been proven.

Planetary is absolutely full of ideas – wonderful, incredible ideas. But the first idea is the greatest of all; making Planetary an organisation dedicated to uncovering the secret history of the 20th Century – “mystery archaeologists”, dedicated to uncovering the secret history of the 20th Century. At a stroke this allows Ellis free range over every incredible facet of the 20th Century, all the weirdness, all the impossible tech, all the amazing adventures and all the wonderful characters of it’s fictions.



(More fabulous Cassaday artwork from the softcover collection Planetary Volume 1: All Over The World)

New recruit Elijah Snow is 100 years old, one of the group of century babies, born at the dawn of the 20th Century, superpowered, but a broken man, his memory shot to hell. Planetary allows him to tortuously piece together his mysterious past and uncover the secrets his team-mates are hiding from him about the identity of the Fourth Man, Planetary’s mysterious backer.

With the Fourth Man problem solved in the first half of the story, Snow then turns Planetary’s attention to the 4; Ellis’ dark and twisted version of Marvel’s Fantastic 4, reimaged as malevolent, secret masters of the world. Over 50 years they’ve made the world mediocre, robbing it of wonders and costing millions of lives in the process. It’s Snow’s obsessive mission to save his planet from their yoke that drives the second half of Planetary, although there’s still time for interludes and one off stories, that somehow never fail to impress as they reveal some tiny bit more in Snow’s mission to save the world.



In the end, Snow’s purpose is revealed, simply and profoundly, as a man who saves things; people, information, experiences, the wonders of the world from the straitjacket of the 4. And it’s Snow’s final obsession, to save his dearest friend and team-mate, dead following a Planetary encounter with a fictional reality, that gives the book, always full of wonder, it’s beating heart. This is Ellis’ goodbye, to his readers and most touchingly his father, who died during Planetary’s troubled 10 year genesis.

Planetary starts out as Ellis’ love letter to the world of genre fiction but finishes as a hugely poignant and affecting story of loss and redemption. Planetary is a call to arms to make a finer world, and stands as one of the greatest superhero fantasy series ever told. It’s a book I’ll return to regularly, and every time I read it through I never loss any of the sense of wonder and excitement I had that very first time I picked up issue 1. From first page to last, I love it.



It’s a classic and should be in your library. If I had to pick one series that I loved more than any other this would be it.

PROPAGANDA Reviews: Logicomix - The Best Of The Year

Logicomix

Concept & Story by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou. Art by Alecos Papadatos.

Bloomsbury

“What Is Logic? ….. My way of telling you the story of Logic will be through the tale of one of it’s most ardent fans. Myself!” – Betrand Russell from the pages of Logicomix.

Here’s a comic you wouldn’t have seen a few years ago – a detailed study of Betrand Russell’s life and his work; of mathematics, of logic, of philosophy and, like it says right there on the cover; an epic search for truth. There really is no simple way of defining Logicomix, except by virtue of it’s absolute brilliance. Logicomix is unquestionably my book of the year, but, just as Betrand Russell ultimately considered his life’s work rather a failure (as any attempt to create a universal truth in mathematics or science would be), I’m not entirely happy with my words here. Simply because I rather lack the words to describe to you exactly how good Logicomix is.

Logicomix tells the story of Bertrand Russell’s life. A giant in the fields of Mathematics, Logic and Philosophy, he was a truly radical and incredibly important thinker whose works attempting to establish a universal, fundamental foundation for mathematics have influenced many of the world’s greatest minds since then.

(Foundations that Russell would spend a lifetime first tearing down and then attempting to rebuild. From Logicomix. Published by Bloomsbury.)

Russell’s search for a new, absolute truth in mathematics and logic as detailed in Logicomix encompasses most of the legendary figures in the field; Gottlob Frege, David Hilbert, and Kurt Gödel, and perhaps most importantly his impassioned student; Ludwig Wittgenstein, who would later destroy much of Russell’s work through his own ideas on Mathematics. But, as the authors mention, it’s Russell’s pioneering work that allows these incredible thinkers, Wittgenstein included, to move mathematics and logic forwards. The story may have it’s roots in the movements of the time, but a lot of the narrative, the required meeting of minds, as freely admitted by the authors in the afterword, is a result of a process of simplification, reduction and outright invention. This reworking of historical reality into the spellbinding narrative within the pages of Logicomix is fitting, forming a new historical reality in much the same way as Russell et al were concerned with creating a new reality for the fundamental principles of the world they lived in.

But whilst a graphic novel on the subject of complex mathematical and logical ideas may sound a little dry, Logicomix is anything but. The ideas Russell was trying to expound are incredibly dense, hugely technical and amazingly complex mathematical ones (famously Russell and Whitehead took an incredible 362 pages, 15 more than in this graphic novel, to prove that 1 + 1 = 2). But never in Logicomix do the authors allow these incredibly complex ideas to get too far beyond the reader’s grasp.

(A moment that Russell himself describes as – “Think of that: 362 pages to prove what every child knows”. A small glimpse into the obsessive nature of the field. From Logicomix. Published by Bloomsbury.)

To keep us readers up to speed and involved the authors don’t simply tell a tale of mathematics and logical thought, instead they use not one, but two simple framing devices to make the work accessible. The first is Russell himself, delivering a talk in America during 1939, as the debate on whether to enter the second World War or continue an isolationist policy rages. This philosophical debate on the question of entering the war is a perfect backdrop to allow Russell to tell a tale of his life and the complicated ideas of mathematics, logical thinking and philosophy that would become an obsession, defining his life and tormenting his every moment. The nature of his talk, spinning out biographical facts, philosophical questions and a detailed look at mathematics and logic along the way is laid out as a parable for the audience, both in Russell’s lecture and the audience reading this graphic novel.

The second framing device occurs between the chapters of Russell’s life, when the entire narrative is suspended and the creators of the graphic novel appear as themselves, discussing the work in progress. It’s a simple but marvellously effective way to break up a complex and difficult story, allowing the readers to catch their breath, absorb all they’ve read before and be gently guided by the creators of the story. It’s also functions as a simple method to incorporate the essentially self-referential nature of much of mathematics – by including themselves in their work, discussing the work in progress, the authors are as self-referential as much of Russell’s own work, including his ground-breaking (and Logician breaking at the time of it’s publication) Russell’s Paradox – here beautifully illustrated with Russell’s own parable of the Barber….

(And who will shave the barber? The essentials of Russell’s Paradox laid out beautifully simply. Such complex ideas, so easily explained. From Logicomix. Published by Bloomsbury.)

Of course, Russell’s ultimate goal, to create an absolute fundamental foundation for mathematics and logic, was forever to be an elusive, obsessive dream. The authors perfectly create the incredible sense of yearning in Russell’s life for this impossible goal, something that overwhelmed everything; his marriages, his children, his very sanity – all would come second to this impossible dream. And it’s all beautifully, evocatively detailed in the pages of Logicomix.

But any graphic novel depends not only on the creativity and insight of it’s writers, but on the skill and technique of it’s artist. And here, the art team of Papadatos, and his colourist Di Donna, inkers Karatzaferis & Paraskevas and even visual researcher and letterer Bardy prove more than equal to the arduous task of visualising the momentous events of the work and making it a seamless, visual delight throughout. It’s never a chore to look at these pages of talking heads, the stylistic touches throughout, the beautiful compositions of both panels and pages, the architecture, the body language and expressions of the characters, is all so well done that the work just flows, effortlessly, allowing the absorption of the ideas of the piece to happen naturally and is as far from an arduous treatise on higher mathematics as you could possibly imagine.

Throughout the graphic novel, with the talking heads doing the explaining, I was reminded of Scott McCloud delivering his treatises on comics in Understanding Comics and it’s sequels. Interestingly there are even a few direct comparisons between Logistics and McCloud’s theories on comics; specifically in Wittgenstein’s “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” and it’s dealing of modelling the world with representation and language. But was it McCloud who was influenced by Wittgenstein or was it the creators of Logicomix who were influenced by McCloud’s arguments and visuals? Either way it’s all fascinating stuff.

(The transition from reality through to modelling by language and the parallels between Logicomix analysis of Witgenstein’s work in mathematics and McCloud’s pictorial vocabulary. Influences? But who influences who?)

Logicomix is one of those books that comes along every few years and completely changes the way I look at things. I’ve always been a science geek, loving the ideas of theoretical physics/pop science since I was at school. But Logicomix has now opened up an entire new realm to me, of mathematics, logical thinking and philosophy. And it’s done it in a thoroughly entertaining and concise graphic novel that ranks as one of the best stories I’ve read for many a year.

With something this incredibly complex, original and utterly wonderful, I can only implore you to give it a try. Logicomix is my book of the year, but it’s one that seems to have slipped under a lot of people’s radar. Please, please, I implore you, don’t let it slip under yours.

PROPAGANDA Reviews: Andi Watson's wonderful Glister in The House Hunt

Glister: The House Hunt

by Andi Watson

Walker Books

The second Glister book from Walker Books, released earlier this month along with Glister: The Haunted Teapot (review). To be honest everything I said in that review could easily fit here.

Glister is such a delightful work, full of marvellous moments and sumptuous artwork that I could almost wish Andi just spent his time making these stories from now on. I say almost since I’m acutely aware that Andi’s more adult orientated work (for example: the wonderful Breakfast Afternoon, Slow News Day or Little Star) is just as good and I’d love to see more of that sort of book from him as well. Maybe I can just hope for a few Glister books a year and then one adult work as well?

(Strange things happen around Glister Butterworth. Andi opens The House Hunt just the way he did The Haunted Teapot, with a lovely little introduction to Glister and her world. From Glister: The House Hunt, (c) Andi Watson, published Walker Books.)

Anyway, Glister: The House Hunt features all of the stuff that made Glister: The Haunted Teapot so wonderfully fun; Glister is still an energetic, effervescent sparkle of quaint Englishness, a perfect heroine for the young girls Andi’s writing this for (and one of Molly’s favourite characters she’s met in comics so far). But with the Haunted House Andi opens his work up a little more. Instead of a deliberately self contained story, we get to explore a little more of Glister’s world here.

Glister’s village is taking part in the annual Village-In-Bloom contest, complete with pompous and oh so marvellously English chairman; Mr Leonard Swarkstone, the Lord Lieutenant of Whixleyshire and head of the Gravehunger Moss Bonny village taskforce. He’s determined to have everything in the village looking “just-so” and he’s none to keen on Chilblain Hall, especially after Glister gives him the guided tour, taking in the Troll bridge (complete with real Troll), underground railways, the robing room with her dad’s minibeast collection and much more.

(Chilblain Hall. Weird and wonderful, but never going to win awards from the bonny village taskforce. From Glister: The House Hunt, (c) Andi Watson, published Walker Books.)

Chilblain Hall, you see, is no ordinary home, it’s a magical, wonderful place, constantly changing and never settling on any one layout or look. You’re equally likely to find your bedroom transformed into a cinema overnight or discover that the Masonic Lodge has taken up residence in the wine cellar. But this magical beauty holds no appeal for Mr Swarkstone, he’s a man of order and straight lines so the raggle taggle architecture and delightfully mismatched rooms of Chilblain Hall don’t appeal in the slightest. Which is when he makes his serious mistake. He tells Glister what he really thinks. And he does it within earshot of the hall:

“It’s a health and safety disaster waiting to happen, a veritable deathtrap in the heart of our rural idyll. On top of which it’s an eyesore, a Frankenstein’s monster of follies and anachronisms hastily stitched together in the style of… of…. ”
“Neo-gothic?” (suggests Glister)
“In the style of a dog’s breakfast”
“The best thing that could possibly happen is for this ramshackle lean-to to be shipped brick by brick across the Atlantic and pieced back together in some Texas rancher’s theme park.”

(Chilblain Hall, in all it’s splendour, given genuine character and life throughout The House Hunt. It isn’t just a house, it’s written brilliantly to be as real as the people in Glister’s life. And just like them, it can be hurt by the unkind words of others. From Glister: The House Hunt, (c) Andi Watson, published Walker Books.)

Chilblain Hall takes it all to heart. Glister does her best to assuage it’s wounded pride, talking up it’s handsome tower, explaining that rustic is in this season and that there’s no need to be so sad. But her words fail to cheer the poor old hall up for very long and one day it simply ups and leaves the way only marvellously magical residences can.

The rest of the book deals with Glister’s heartfelt attempts to bring her home (and her friend) back to where it rightfully belongs. Along the way we get to see Glister and her dad realise that finding temporary accomodation may be harder than it seemed; the Troll’s taken up residence in the wishing well, Long Meg the witch was in the shed for the summer and there’s a battle swine in the Goat house. Eventually the find respite in a swiftly grown tree house, but it’s not Chilblain Hall, not Glister’s friend and she’s missing it terribly:

(Watson’s art, so light and fun throughout, still manages to capture a moment of sadness perfectly. From Glister: The House Hunt, (c) Andi Watson, published Walker Books.)

Watson fills The House Hunt with fantastical and funny characters and situations around the central story of the wonderful Chilblain Hall and it’s self-imposed holiday / exile from Glister’s life. But there’s also time to darken the story a little, adding in a real sense of loss and friendship as Glister realises that she’s missing her friend. And the artwork. Wow. Andi Watson pulls off something that looks uniquely English and modern and lovely and quaint and just plain great. And I trust you can all see that from the examples here. Beautiful work full of moments of artistic brilliance.

Glister is available wherever you can get good quality children’s books. Alas, it looks unlikely that it will be found in comic shops anytime soon as Walker Books don’t really deal with them. Shame. I’d hate to think the Andi Watson fans out there (and I know that there are many of us) would miss out on this.

The next Glister book: The Faerie Host is out in January. It’s the last of the stories previously published by Image and it takes the book to new heights. Glister is a rare thing, a comic designed for children that will amaze and entertain everyone who picks it up, young or old, boy or girl. Definitely one to pick up.

PROPAGANDA Reviews: Crazy Hair - Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean

Crazy Hair

By Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean.

We love Gaiman and McKean’s picture books in our house; from the very earliest age my daughter Molly has been transfixed with the incredible tales of Dads getting swapped for a pair of goldfish and wolves living in the wall of houses. They’ve been bedtime stories since she was born, never getting tired, never getting old and they all sit on her shelf even now, regularly re-read, slightly battered and with the occasional tooth mark on the spine, but they’re loved, well loved.

And even though she’s reached the grand old age of 9, it was still an exciting day when Crazy Hair arrived, a beautiful hardback, slightly oversized thing with that chaotic, colourful and downright hairy cover. We settled down, we snuggled in, we read on and …… well, to be honest we felt a little let down on our first read.

Whether we’ve been spoilt by the warmth, quirkiness and invention of the first books or whether this just isn’t as good I wasn’t sure. But both of us felt it was lacking something, that spark of genius that ran through the others. It’s not that it isn’t good. It is. It’s not that it isn’t fun. Or funny. Or warm. Or quirky. Or inventive. Or playful. Or all manner of lovely things. Just that it’s not as much of all those things as the previous books have been. That’s the problem with setting the bar so high I suppose.

But then we read it again a few days later. And again, and again. And it grows on you. It really does. The rhythm, the comedy, the flights of fantasy become familiar and more and more fun as you re-read. It’s simpler than previous Gaiman books, and would make a perfect first book for children, as I’m certain now that it’s delightfully repetitive words will have any young child giggling and laughing along.

The tale of young Bonnie trying to tame her dad’s crazy hair has all the hallmark’s of Gaiman’s previous books. She sets about his hair and gets to know all of the weird and wonderful things he’s lost in there; explorers, tigers, bears, hot air balloons and ships are just the start of it. The idea’s simple and fun, the story just plays on the simple concept over and over which means its great to read aloud, putting on the voices and doing the rhymes, wondering just what new and bizarre thing will come out of dad’s hair next.

Dave McKean’s artwork, beautiful and inventive in previous books is utterly amazing here. He’s switched styles again, as he often does. This time it’s sumptuous colours and computer generated hair that looks so real you can almost feel it. In fact, there are a couple of close ups that almost make you uncomfortable. Each page is a visual delight as we get further and further into the crazy hair and meet all the weird things lurking inside. The detail’s amazing, the flights of fancy leap out from the page in an absolute visual explosion.

So this might not be our favourite Gaiman & McKean picture book, but I think that has more to do with the age that Molly is than a problem with the book. I actually envy you if you have a really young child. I can see them now, squirming and giggling and laughing with joy as you make the voices come alive, as each colourful new surprise appears. It’s a great first picture book and as an introduction to the rest it’s heartily recommend. It joins the rest of Neil Gaiman’s children’s library as books that you’ll want to read time and time again, never getting bored with them. And in time they’ll become the books your child will end up reading to their own children, there can be not higher praise than that.

(Neil Gaiman reads Crazy Hair at a convention in Israel, 2006)

The Neil Gaiman Children’s Library:
So far Neil’s made four picture books with Dave McKean: The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish, The Wolves In The Walls, Mirrormask and Crazy Hair.
McKean also provides illustrations for two of his books of prose for children: Coraline and The Graveyard Book.
And most recently Gaiman’s prayer for daughters was released with art from Charles Vess: Blueberry Girl.

Neil Gaiman’s website & the Mouse Circus website for younger readers.
Dave McKean’s website.

PROPAGANDA Reviews: Harker 1 & 2

Harker issue 1 & 2

Plot, script, letters by Roger Gibson & plot, art, covers by Vince Danks.

Ariel Press

I love really good genre writing. There’s few feelings in the world better than settling down with a good noir thriller or watching a really great bit of big, stupid sci-fi. It’s a comforting, warm blanket of a feeling. And Harker’s got that feeling in spades.

This is one of those books that I knew I was going to enjoy within the first ten pages. It had that feel of a great genre work, grabbing you and taking you exactly where you wanted it to go. Every page had something on it that pressed the right buttons for the bit of my brain that goes silly over great genre stuff. A little bit Sherlock Holmes, a little bit X-Files, CSI, it’s all these and so much more. But most importantly it gave me that immediacy that is incredibly rare, that feeling within the first few pages that this was going to be something special, and by the end of issue 2, it still felt like that - a hugely entertaining comic.

(Harker and Critchley, just your average special investigating double act. Art by Vince danks from Harker issue 1. Published by Ariel Press.)

So here’s what’s going on in Harker:

“A horribly mutilated body has been discovered on the steps of st George’s Church in london, just around the corner from the British Museum. Detective Chief Inspector Harker, and his assistant Detective Sergeant Critchley, experts in multiple homicides, are on the case. The body is unidentified and appears to be the result of a horrific ritual killing. Harker is skeptical, but book fibres found underneath the victim’s fingernails have led our detectives on the search for an Occult book: The Key Of Solomon“.

Doesn’t that just sound great? Thankfully, Gibson and Danks more than do justice to that very enticing hookline. The genre trappings are all there. The police procedural investigation, the crime scene investigation, the autopsy, the legwork, the finding of the clues; it’s all there, exactly where it should be. Add to that the mysterious supernatural goings on to get one really great comic book series. But on top of a really lovely idea, really well executed the thing reads incredibly well; the dialogue’s cracking; quickfire buddy chat with Harker as the mysterious straight man to Critchley’s rapid fire, slightly unhinged funny man. It’s not standard comic book dialogue either, this is the sort of thing you’re more used to hearing on the latest critically acclaimed US import drama series. Very, very good, very real stuff.

(Harker and Critchley, sounding every bit like the top quality TV show they appear to have escaped from. From Harker issue 2, art by Vince Danks, published by Ariel Press.)

Vince Danks’ art always impressed with the previous comic of his; Sapphire, but his work here is a cut above that even. The super detailed work here is amazing. His figures just flow so naturally across the page and his backgrounds are truly wonderful to look at. The story appears to take place in a very tightly defined area of London and I get the impression from the art that I could almost use these panels to find my way around.

(Vince Danks’ frankly beautiful artwork that you can use as a map of the area it’s set in. Reminds me of Gerhard from Cerebus fame in the meticulous detailing of the backgrounds and the architecture. From Harker issue 2.)

Criminally Harker is one of the comics affected by the recent tightening of Diamond Comics minimum order requirements, meaning that only issue 1 made it into Previews, the Diamond Comics listings magazine. Potentially this can kill the book, as the creators now find themselves having to do the work of distribution themselves. It’s a sad reflection of the industry we’re in that something that’s so much fun, so well done, so well drawn and essentially everything good about genre comics can’t sell enough to get onto the distributor lists yet so much atrocious dross does make it in. So if you’re hunting for Harker on the shelves of your loval comic shop and it isn’t there, make sure you tell them about it and how they can stock it by simply getting in touch with Roger or Vince through the website.
Harker is available through the few enlightened shops that sell it and through the Ariel Press website. The website also has a special downloads section with a special issue 0 and preview of issue 1. Issue 1 & 2 are out now and issue 3 is imminent.

Make it a priority to get hold of these first two issues of what should become, if the world of comics were a little bit better and fairer than it is at the moment, a huge hit.

Mustard # 4 - funny comedy mag with added Alan Moore

Mustard # 4

Editor / Designer Alex Musson

Self Published.

I Came to this one rather late after reading about the big Alan Moore interview in this issue somewhere online. I’m even later reviewing it. So late in fact that by now it’s well into it’s recession driven hiatus. Which is rather a shame, because based on this issue, it’s actually a funny magazine about comedy.

Obviously the big draw for me is the Alan Moore interview. I’ve said before now that any interview with Moore is worth reading, no matter how many times he’s talking about the same sorts of things, there’s always something interesting in what he has too say. And so it is here. It’s a big interview; 15 pages of dense stuff, but very well designed dense stuff. Lots of information on each page but all laid out in a nice, visually appealling style. Like it says in the lead in… “And boy, can he talk”.

But once the Moore interview was read and digested I turned my attention to the rest of the magazine. And the actual comedy bits of it are very good indeed.

Think of it perhaps as a more grown up Viz mag. There’s spoof articles such as “Cruel Prank Targets Nation’s Arsewits: Thousands of young men across Britain have been fooled by a new lad’s mag that covertly featured interesting, informative and non-nudity related articles“. Then there’s single panel gag strips, spoof movie news, book reviews and much more.

It’s a real shame that Mustard #4 may well be the last one available for a while, but I’d still recommend heading off to your local Borders to see if they still have the issue. Or alternatively go to the Mustard website to pick up all 4 issues.

A funny magazine about comedy. Indeed it is.

PROPAGANDA Reviews - Phonogram The Singles Club Issue 2

Phonogram - The Singles Club - issue 2 (of 7)

by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie

b-sides artwork by Emma Vieceli and Daniel Heard

So, when last we spoke about Phonogram, back in the review of the first issue, I decided that it was practically the perfect distillation of the magical act of listening to just the right piece of music. The magic in the real world is an emotional thing, catching something inside your mind and changing the way you think, the way you feel and the way you behave. But the magic in Phonogram is a genuine, real magic, transforming people’s lives in remarkable ways. I said back in the review of issue 1 of The Singles Club that:

“I loved the first series of Phonogram (see the review here) and thought Gillen and McKelvie’s black and white comic was a fantastic debut series. Quite amazingly good. But this second series confidently, effortlessly and quite breathtakingly blows away that first series with just this first issue.“

And I’m delighted to say that issue 2 proves it beyond any doubt. Whereas last issue was all about the magic of music and dance, this issue we’re onto the thorny subject of “curse songs”, a phrase Gillen coins in this issue, but it’s so powerfully descriptive of the ability of a song to attach itself to one particular moment forever that you’ll be using this phrase from this point onwards. Curse songs are those songs that, as soon as you hear them, no matter what they are, will explode inside your heart and mind and leave you in pieces. maybe it’s a song you heard when the love of your life walked out of your life years ago, maybe it’s something on the radio when you realised that the most important person in your life was never going to be around again. It doesn’t matter what the song is, it could be anything; just as likely to be something tragically uncool from a teenage disco (personally - T’Pau, China In Your Hand) as something classic and fitting (again, for me - This Mortal Coil, You And Your Sister from their great album Blood). The important thing isn’t what the song is, it’s what it does to you. Every time I hear either of those songs they have the potential to leave me drained, depressed and weeping. They are curse songs.

Kieren Gillen understands exactly what power music has and has used it throughout these issues to create a comic of such intensely personal impact that the actual literal story almost doesn’t matter. It’s not about any one event taking place in the comic, it’s about the magical intensity of the moment caused by the curse song. This issue we have the tale of Marc and spend most of this issue inside his head after one particular curse song sends him spiralling into a hallucination of a particularly painful night with an ex. Whether the curse song is having this effect just through the power of music or because the ex was a phonomancer and placed a curse on him is never really revealed - and that’s all part of the greatness of Phonogram - the story is as open or as literal as you want it to be, and maybe that’s the point. Great writing, like great music can accommodate whatever meaning you want to ascribe to it.

(Still thinking about her? Oh yes. And here’s an entire comic to prove it…)

Like Gillen explained in issue 1, he’s attempting to create a mythology in Phonogram, a world of moments, all taking place inside a club on one night, all from a different character’s perspective. And so far he’s making it work so well that you begin to believe he’s going to pull off the promise he made of creating a comic of single moments that builds up to create a single, multifaceted story. Two issues in and this may already be the comic of the year.

(And there’s the actual moment that Marc hears his curse song and is sent into an issue long memory of lost love. Beautiful art from McKelvie.)

And McKelvie’s artwork, just like I said last time, is spectacular. Simple, expressive, flowing and capturing all of the emotional intensity of Marc’s memories. There’s a lovely effect McKelvie uses in the flashback/memory/hallucination sequence that you can see in the last panel above where he changes his colour palette subtlety and completely changes the tone of his storytelling. Simple technique, beautifully done.

(And here’s the cause of all of Marc’s troubles, the reason for his curse song. Art by McKelvie.)

But it’s not just McKelvie here. The Phonogram comic also has a series of B-Sides in each issue that aren’t going to be collected with the main story; a sweetener to try and get you to buy these single issues and a very worthwhile sweetener at that. This issue the B-Sides feature Emma Vieceli and Daniel Heard illustrating stories, both mini bits of greatness, by Gillen. Wuthering Heights by Vieceli with a “romantic, feminine line” that Gillen talks about needing for this illustration of Kate Bush’s song is almost wordless, but says so much, so well in just 4 issues, expertly detailing a moment, an emotion, the invocation of a mood through music.

(Emma Vieceli’s art for “Wuthering Heights” from Phonogram issue 2.)

And the other B-Side; The Singer is a 2 pager on Diamanda Galas. If you’ve never heard of her - go to You Tube right now to see what she’s like. But suffice it to say that, in just two pages, Gillen and his artist, Daniel Heard, nail it perfectly.

(Diamanda Galas, in a perfect visualisation from Daniel Heard in one of the B-Sides in Phonogram issue 2.)

Phonogram 2 issue 2 should be available at all good comic shops. If it’s not on the shelves demand to know why not. New issues are available for pre-order at the FPI comic store here. The collection of Phonogram Volume 1 is available here.

As is usual in these things, all concerned are online: Phonogram blog (with sample pages and more on future contributors to the B-sides, Gillen’s blog, McKelvie’s blog, Emma Vieceli’s blog, Daniel Heard’s blog.

PROPAGANDA Reviews: Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book

The Graveyard Book

by Neil Gaiman.

Illustrated by Chris Riddell (younger readers version) and Dave McKean (adult version and slipcased edition)

The Graveyard Book’s been out for quite a while now, having received many plaudits and accolades along the way and most recently winning the prestigious Newberry Medal, given by the Association for Library Service to Children to recognise the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. I held off reading it for a little while as I’d decided that it was something I wanted to read with 9 year old Molly after we read Coraline (reviewed here).

We find Neil Gaiman’s children’s books, every single one of them, to be wonderful, imaginative and magical things. We’ve read them all in our house and the act of reading them out loud has convinced me that Gaiman works best this way. His adult prose may lack something for me (one of these days I will convert you to them! - Joe), but his storytelling, his works as performance are great things. And so it is with the Graveyard Book. Night after night Molly and I read this one, with Molly deciding that she wanted the room as dark as possible so she could close her eyes to better imagine the creatures filling the pages of the book.

Now, considering that The Graveyard Book begins a particularly nasty serial killer brutally killing every member of a family except the baby, this could potentially have led to many, many nights of terrible nightmares. Luckily, Molly’s made of stern stuff and realises, just like many children do, that sometimes the stories need a little death to make a life more interesting.

(“They say a witch is buried here” Art from chapter 4 The Witch’s Headstone by Chris Riddell.)

The Graveyard Book starts, as I’ve already mentioned, with a grisly set of murders. The murderer; The Man Jack, is a genuinely chilling and scary villain and mother, father and daughter lie dead by Jack’s hand. Miraculously the baby of the family escapes and finds unexpected refuge in the local graveyard where he’s given a new name; Nobody Owens, and gains a new extended family of ghosts, ghouls, spectres and spooks all doing their best to hide him from The Man Jack who carries on his hunt for the one that got away.

And if all this sounds rather familiar, a young boy rescued by a strange group of creatures and raised as one of their own, all the while under threat from a powerful monster, it’s no surprise. It’s the Jungle Book with dead folks and Gaiman acknowledges his huge debt to Kipling’s story in the back of the book.

So Bod finds a new home in the graveyard, looked after by his ghostly adoptive mother and father, tutored by ghosts, mentored by his vampiric guardian and given the freedom of the graveyard. It may be no ordinary life that Bod has, but it’s certainly not boring. But there’s only so much that the dead can teach about life and Bod finds himself drawn, time and again, into the land of the living where danger and adventure waits in equal parts.

The book is almost structured as a series of short stories, as Bod ventures through the graveyard’s various mysteries, finds a ghostly witch girl her headstone, takes part in the Danse Macabre where the dead venture from the graveyard and dance amongst the living, and becomes the imaginary friend to a young girl (told by her parents that the boy she plays with is her imaginary friend and why should she disbelieve them?). At one point I began to wonder where Gaiman was taking us with the story, as each chapter / short story seemed to be only moving the story along by accident rather than design. But I need not have worried, as he skilfully and magnificently draws all of his many threads together as The Man Jack comes crashing back into Bod’s life to finish the job he started nearly 16 years previous.

(“The four men stood at the door to number 33″. Chris Riddell’s wonderfully detailed art is the perfect match for Neil Gaiman’s decidedly scary story of The Graveyard Book.)

It might be a prose story, but I have to mention the artwork of the book. Gaiman’s frequent collaborator, the great Dave McKean provides some magnificent art for the adult version of the book. But I picked up the children’s version for Molly, with illustrations by Chris Riddell. And it surprised me, because when I did see McKean’s visuals I realised that, not only did I prefer Riddell’s version, I actually thought the pictures were far scarier than McKean’s. Take that image above, from Chapter 7 where the mysterious men representing the Convocation appear, as threatening and disturbing as anything Gaiman can think of.

Not that McKean’s images aren’t as impressive as usual, far from it. His images of Bod and the graveyard are lovely, haunting things. I just find Riddell’s to be far more disturbing and suitable for the book.

(Bod in the graveyard. Art By Dave McKean from the adult version of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.)

The Graveyard Book is typical Gaiman; packed with imagination and invention, delightfully scary with at least a couple of truly disturbing moments that are almost guaranteed to have younger children cowering with thrilling fear beneath the covers. Yet for a book set so firmly amongst the dead, The Graveyard Book’s real message is that life, no matter who, what or where you are, is always worth living and a really good life has to be experienced rather than observed.

It’s a book to be treasured for a long time, a natural successor to the great Coraline and, whether it’s enjoyed from under the covers late at night with Dad providing all the scary voices, or a little later on to be read alone with the scares all playing out in their head, it’s something children and grown ups will absolutely love.

The Graveyard Book is available in three flavours: The Children’s Version, illustrated by Chris Riddell; The Adult Version, illustrated by Dave McKean and the slipcased edition illustrated by Dave McKean. It’s also available from the Mouse Circus website (Gaiman’s site for younger fans) as a series of videos, each from one of Gaiman’s Graveyard Book tour readings from October 2008, where Gaiman reads the entire book over nine stops.

PROPAGANDA Reviews: Blueberry Girl by Neil Gaiman & Charles Vess

Blueberry Girl

by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess

Bloomsbury

For an explanation of the genesis of this book there’s nothing better than the author’s own words from Neil’s introduction to the book at his website for younger readers; Mr Bobo’s Remarkable Mouse Circus:

“This is the kind of book that comes about when a friend phones you and says, “I’ll be having a baby in a month. Would you write her a poem? A sort of prayer, maybe? We call her the Blueberry. . . .” And you think, Yes, actually. I would.

I wrote the poem. When the baby was born, they stopped calling her the Blueberry and started calling her Natashya, but they pinned up the handwritten Blueberry girl poem beside her bed. I kept a copy at my house, taped to a filing cabinet. And when friends read it, they said things like “Please, can I have a copy for my friend who is going to be giving birth to a daughter?” and I wound up copying it out for people, over and over.

I wasn’t going to let it be published, not ever. It was private, and written for one person, even if I did seem to be spending more and more of my time handwriting or printing out nice copies for mothers-to-be and for babies.

Then artist Charles Vess (whom I had collaborated with on Stardust) read it. And somehow, it all became simple. I made a few phone calls. We decided to make some donations to some charities. And Charles began to draw, and then to paint, taking the poem as a starting point and then making something universal and beautiful.

It’s a book for mothers and for mothers-to-be. It’s a book for anyone who has, or is, a daughter. It’s a prayer and a poem, and now it’s a beautiful book. I hope you enjoy it. I’m really proud of it. And I hope this means I don’t have to copy it out any longer…. Neil”

(Gorgeous Charles Vess pencils and finished page from Blueberry Girl.)

And after such an introduction, it shouldn’t be a surprise to find out that Blueberry Girl is a beautiful, moving and deeply poetic book. At just 28 pages and 18 lines of long, there’s barely anything to it, but it’s still a wonderful, loving thing. Gaiman’s words, although written just for Tori Amos’ daughter, have enough universal meaning to be applicable to any mother, to any daughter. His message is simple, his emotions true and touching, every line is full of love and sentiment.

Whilst most of Gaiman’s children’s work tends to be more father & child orientated, he shows with Blueberry Girl that he’s just as capable of identifying so well with the intense bond of unconditional love between mother and daughter. He’s managed to perfectly capture that nighttime prayer that every parent says over their sleeping child at some point in their lives. The wish for their lives to be blessed, glorious things, full of adventures and wonder. And these Blueberry Girls are living that wish; with lives of adventure, exploring the world, laughing, dancing and filled with joy.

And thanks to the beautiful artwork of Charles Vess this tiny poem becomes an incredible picture book. Vess took Gaiman’s words, designed for one child, and drew his pictures in such a way to make the poem universal. The Blueberry Girl of the title becomes every girl and each page features a different child, wandering through the narrative on spectacular flights of fancy.

Gaiman’s words, together with Vess’ visuals have made a beautiful thing. There was a lump in my throat most of the way through. There was a tear in Louise’s eye when she finished it. This is a book that will speak to every parent, but it will sing to all mothers and it may well send expectant mothers into floods of joyous tears.

(More of Charles Vess’ gorgeous artwork from Blueberry Girl)

It’s possibly too late to really push this as exactly the sort of book you should be getting for Mother’s Day. But it’s exactly the sort of book you don’t need an artificial event for. Get it for a mother, she’ll thank you for it with her smile and her tears of simple joy.

Part of the proceeds from the sale of Blueberry Girl goes to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.

Neil Gaiman’s website.
Charles Vess’ website.

PROPAGANDA Review: Mark Kalesniko's Alex

Alex

by Mark Kalesniko

Fantagraphics

Alex is an incredibly depressing, utterly miserable book with a central character you should find uttely deplorable and without a single redeeming feature, whose existence is a pointless, alcohol fuelled waste and whose relationships are, without exception, toxic.

But it’s also one of my favourite books and never, ever fails to make me amazed at how good a writer and artist Mark Kalesniko is as he makes me care deeply about this utter trainwreck of a person.

(This is Alex. Alex’s life is not going like he planned. From Alex by Mark Kalesniko)

Alex is a frankly mesmerising read. It’s said that the dog faced central character of Alex Kalienka is Mark Kalesniko’s alter ego. I really hope not, for his sake.

Because Alex is a mess. Alcoholic, at war with himself, everything and everyone, desperately unhappy with how his life has gone and back in his home town of Bandini after fifteen years in LA living his dream of working for Mickey Walt Studios, only to discover he couldn’t cope with that either. He’s home, without hope, angry at life and trying his best to crawl into a bottle and immunise himself against the world.

“Reminding me that I have no future, no present and a past I detest” - Alex on old friends and his hometown.

As the story opens Alex wakes up on a park bench after another night on a bender, wondering what the hell he did to get there and why the hell he’s carrying his old high school yearbook.

Through the course of the book he is presented with the answers to both of these as he stumbles through his shattered life, bumping into old school-mates, friends, teachers, enemies and unrequited loves. Each meeting only makes Alex’s situation worse and he spirals down to what must be his inevitable self-destruction. Yet, just as all seems without hope he suddenly rediscovers his art and starts to slowly draw some hope from that. But alas, life isn’t done kicking Alex when he’s down.

I adore Alex. In the same way that the most miserable, depressing music can profoundly affect you when your not in the best of moods, the misery and torment of Alex has a strangely edifying effect upon me. I read it for the first time when it came out over ten years ago and instantly got it. It’s a difficult read, but hugely rewarding. Not to mention very funny. That’s right. Funny. Kalesniko isn’t afraid to milk Alex’s disaster of a life to comic effect and has a powerful command of slapstick that he uses so well throughout.

And his art. Wow, his art. Look at the three examples on the page here. The linework is incredibly spare but there’s not a wasted line on any picture of Alex and everything tells you just what you need to know about his utter psychological breakdown. But then you look at that final page and notice the incredible detailing and the wonderful layout. That happens time and time again. A page will just amaze you, first with it’s structure, then with the emotional intensity of his character work and finally with the level of detailing.

So, if you are going to get just one book on an alcoholic dog make sure you choose Alex. Then again, if you want a book that will utterly absorb and involve you as it drags you as far down into someone’s depression and failure as you can really bear and yet also manages to make you laugh then you also need to buy a copy of Alex. It’s stunning.

PROPAGANDA Reviews: Phonogram - The Singles Club Issue 1

Dance till the stars come down from the rafters
Dance, Dance, Dance till you drop.
-W.H. Auden

Phonogram: The Singles Club #1

by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie

Image Comics

I loved the first series of Phonogram (see the review here) and thought Gillen and McKelvie’s black and white comic was a fantastic debut series. Quite amazingly good. But this second series confidently, effortlessly and quite breathtakingly blows away that first series with just this first issue.

All seven issues in the series are going to be self-contained tales that will all create a larger, more complex tale across the series, each issue featuring different characters yet taking place across one night in one particular club. If Gillen pulls that off after this absolute peach of a debut issue, we’re in for a fine treat because this first issue does something very special indeed. Every line of dialogue sparkles and shines, every action dazzles and the music wafts above it all, wave upon wave of it. The comic just dances. And we dance with it, invited to do so by the characters themselves.

(If she asked you to dance, you’d be up on the dancefloor before you knew what was going on, admit it. Penny B, phonomancer, dancer, about to get in trouble.)

But dancing in Phonogram isn’t something we watch, it’s something we’re being invited to experience. I’ve never read anything in comics that manages to thoroughly express that sheer joy of being young and beautiful as this comic does, nor anything that captures the ecstatic moment when the music becomes too much and you just can’t help but give yourself over to it and get up and dance. That’s something that should be nigh on impossible to put to words. But Gillen does it so very well.

So join Penny B and Laura Evans, two phonomancers (magicians who use music) on a night at the coolest nightclub in town. Penny B dances like an angel, and will make you feel like dancing as well, whether you want to or not. But the nightclub she’s in has just three rules: One; no boy singers: Two; you must dance: Three; no magic. She’s fine with the first two. But the last one’s going to get her into so much trouble tonight.

(Meet Penny B. Epic covered in sparklers and win-flakes indeed. From Phonogram: Singles Club issue 1. Published Image Comics.)

The story is more than matched by Jamie McKelvie’s art. He was impressive enough in the first series, improved no end in his own series Suburban Glamour (review here) and now eclipses everything he’s done before with absolutely beautiful artwork in Phonogram The Singles Club.

In an attempt to win over those of us who wait for the collection, The Singles Club also boasts plentiful annotations and backup strips / B-Sides written by Gillen and featuring a variety of artists, starting off with Laurenn McCubbin and our old friend Marc Ellerby:

(Marc Ellerby’s art from Kieron Gillen’s story as one of the two B-sides in the first issue of Phonogram; Singles Club.)

Phonogram The Singles Club is one of the best single issue comics I’ve read in a long while. Issue 1 is already set for a second printing, but once that’s gone, then you’ll have missed out on something very special indeed; a comic that not only wants you to dance, but leads you onto the dancefloor and starts playing just the right tunes to make it impossible not to.

As is usual in these things, all concerned are online:

Phonogram blog (with sample pages and more on future contributors to the B-sides, Gillen’s blog, McKelvie’s blog, Marc Ellerby, Laurenn McCubbin.