New Comics

Where the blogger writes about his newly received monthly package of comics from the nice people at Page 45 before he's even read them, although God knows why he thinks anybody would be interested. Anyway, let the inane babbling commence.

Leaf (Fantagrahics Books)

Creator: Daishu Ma

This is the Page 45 Comic Book of the Month for September '15 and the image of the cover does not do justice to the sheer beauty of this book. It's a lovely hardback, with the logo seen through a leaf-shaped cut out in the cover. This is a wordless comic and it is one I'm really looking forward to curling up with as we enter that best of seasons, autumn. Sat in a chair with the leaves falling in the garden outside, and a nice steaming mug of hot chocolate to hand, this book open on my lap. A quick glance at the interior shows that, aesthetically at least, it pushes all the right buttons.

Loki Agent of Asgard #17 (Marvel)

Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Lee Garbett
Colour Artist: Antonio Fabela
Letters: Clayton Cowles

This has been a fantastic series but looking at the editorial on the back page, this is the concluding issue. A great shame and this is a comic I'm really going to miss. Still better to go out whilst it is still on top form and the creators have not tired of it. There is one thing I'm certain of and that is the creators will deliver a conclusion that satisfies on every level. I've every faith in them.

Ms Marvel #17 (Marvel)

Writer: G. Willow Wilson
Artist: Adrian Alphona
Colour Art: Ian Herring
Letters: Joe Caramagna
Cover: Kris Anka

This is the other super-hero comic that I get regularly every month, and shares with Loki a sense of fun. Last issue Carol Danvers had turned up to lend a hand so it will be interesting to see how Kamala handles meeting her hero. This comic has not once let me down in the previous sixteen issues in terms of the entertainment it offers. Young and modern with a strong female lead, this shows just how good this genre can be. The fact that the likeable young hero is also a Muslim, realistically portrayed, adds an extra layer of meaning and importance which never turn didactic.

Providence #3 and #4 (Avatar)

Story: Alan Moore
Art: Jacen Burrows
Colour: Juan Rodriguez
Letters: Kurt Hathaway

 I'm a huge Lovecraft fan and was first turned onto him when Alan Moore mentioned the writer as a key influence in an interview sometime in the mid-eighties, so I had high expectations when this series began to be publicised. The first two issues have not disappointed. This is a dense read, with a  lot of allusions to various Lovecraft stories, and a huge amount of information that helps place you in this world (there are quite long text excerpts from the protagonist's journal at the end of each of the first two issues. Given the rather understated covers we have had, I'm rather disappointed with the cover to issue three and the picture of Dagon rising out of the water. Lovecraft is at his strongest when the horrors are hidden just out of sight, when you can feel there is something slightly out of kilter with the world but can't quite place it. Still I'm hopeful the interior will continue the high standards set so far.

Rachel Rising #36 (Abstract Studio)

Creator: Terry Moore

A lovely cover, as ever with Terry Moore. Each of these issues just flies by when your reading it, so that you are surprised when you get to the end so quickly, and a little disappointed that you now have to leave the world he has created for another six weeks. He has the knack of making you want more every time, a trick he established quite early on in Strangers in Paradise and has perfected through Echo and now Rachel Rising. There was a point some time ago when it looked like he wasn't going to be able to carry on with this title as it was not economically viable. Now we are onto issue thirty six I'm really hoping that things have turned around because comics of this quality are always needed.

The Fade Out #8 (Image)

Creators: Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
Colours: Elizabeth Breitweiser

This is Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. What more needs to be said? I think they are in the upper echelons of creative teams working in English language comics today. In thirty years time I think we'll be looking back on them and their work with the same regard comics fandom has for Lee and Kirby and their run on Fantastic Four (a regard I don't share but that's a purely personal issue). This is lovingly packaged with an image of a still from a film at the back which helps make this world they've created all the more believable.

Velvet #11 (Image)

Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artist: Steve Epting
Colours: Elizabeth Breitweiser

Ed Brubaker again, this time with Steve Epting. I think we are now entering the conclusion of the story that started in issue one, and hopefully by the end of this arc we will have a lot of our questions answered. I don't know if it will work out well for our heroine. I hope it does but I don't expect it will do. That just wouldn't fit the overall tone and I think Velvet may well be left more emotionally damaged than she was at the start. On a personal note I had a quick glance at the letters page and the letter I sent a while ago has been printed. The internet is fine but there's nothing like seeing your name in print in the actual comic to make you grin all over like a loon.

Sunny Volume 5 (Viz Media)

Creator: Taiyo Matsumoto

Volume one was a Page 45 Comic Book of the Month and I'm so glad it was as it introduced me to one of the most entertaining, moving comcs I've read. If you think of manga as all constant action-oriented, fast paced stuff the this will change your mind. It's about an orphanage in Japan where children are sent, not because their parents have dies, but because their parents don't want them or can't cope with them anymore. The concept sounds sad but instead results in really inspiring tales. There is no melodrama here, and there are no dire threats  to the kids. These are tales of the childen's emotional ups and downs in their day-to-day lives and its wonderful.

Rachel Rising #7 (Abstract Studio)

Creator: Terry Moore

So Rachel Rising has passed the six issue mark and the end of its introductory arc. In the first chapter following that arc, we get more character development and complications. The mysterious woman who seems to be at the centre of everything that happen appears in a different guise for the first time, or at least possesses the mind of a passerby to mutter her quotation at Rachel, "And they shall fall like snow". This is slightly spoiled in an uncharacteristic slip up on the part of Terry Moore as he holds the readers hand to tell them exactly what she is referring to:

"Death. She's talking about death."

I've not known Moore not trust his readers to interpret the work themselves before, and this is just clumsy and irritating. It feels so clunky that I'm not sure if it's a piece of misdirection put in by the artist, but even then it feels out of kilter with how the rest of the story has been told thus far (if such a thing had happened in the first couple of issues then I may well have dropped the title).

Nevertheless we shouldn't make too much of this. It stands out more because the rest of the comic has been so good, and Moore is such a great storyteller normally. The remaining sixteen (of eighteen) pages is as good as ever. We have a new character introduced in Detective Corpell who is investigating the crash that ended issue six, declarations of love to a corpse, more people coming back from the dead and a rather macabre Star of David. That final scene with the Star of David leads one to speculate that this could be something to do with the Holocaust, but would that be too obvious? I'm hopeful that it won't lead into some sort of hackneyed revenge tale, but will remain much more interesting and fulfil the promise it shows, and which Terry Moore's pedegree reinforces.

The underlying themes within this work are starting to emerge, and they are consistent with the artist's previous work in that the themes are ultimately about the personal relationships we create with each other in our everyday lives, and the importance of these relationships even in the face, especially in the face, of bigger, more dramatic events that happen both around and to us. In Strangers in Paradise we had the whole crime thing, in Echo there was the imminent man-made apocalypse, and here it is people dying violent deaths and then coming back. In all of these the important things, the aspects that Moore lingered on longest and that readers cared about, were the relationships the characters had built up with each other. Here we have Rachel, Jet, Aunt Johnny and Earl, and what the reader cares about is what they mean to each other. I would say that more than death, what readers fear in all of Terry Moore's work is that the characters will do something to betray each other, to hurt each other emotionally, and a desire to see people treat each other with kindness and love is no bad thing.

Anyway after all that, I'm still unsure as to where it is all leading. What I am sure about is that, wherever the journey leads, it is incredible fun getting there.

Rachel Rising #1  (Abstract Studio)

Creator: Terry Moore


A woman walks through a forest to a ditch and watches as another female rises from the ground as if buried alive. The just-buried girl walks home and then tries to figure out what happened to her. She has a mark around her throat that her memory, which is extremely unreliable, indicates is a rope that was used to strangle her. Her eyes are very strange and her cat is afraid of her. Finally she is told that she is not who she thinks she is - she is not Rachel. Thus ends issue one.

Hot on the heels of the rather magnificent science fiction series, Echo, comes this seeming horror/mystery title from Terry Moore. Mr. Moore uses an effective narrative device here as the main protagonist is as clueless as the reader as to the events that led up to the start of the book. We learn as she learns, and at the end of the first issue this reader really wanted to get straight into the next issue to learn more about this girl and the whole mystery. Fortunately as I was late getting onto this series, my comic shop sent both issues one and two together (thanks Page 45). Sometimes being slow off the mark can have its advantages.

The second issue cranks the mystery up and expands on Rachel's world as she goes to visit her Aunt Johnny, who works at a mortuary and is a little mentally unstable. We get the impression that Rachel is dead as he lumps her in with all the other apparitions of dead people that he experiences whilst working in the mortuary at night. The mysterious woman from the start of issue one turns up again and encounters a sweet little girl, who suddenly turns extremely violent after the visit. We leave the issue with two questions - what has happened to Rachel and who is this mysterious woman?

Let me first say that I have always admired and enjoyed Terry Moore's work, from Strangers in Paradise through Echo and now onto Rachel Rising. He is an extremely talented cartoonist and his art is an unalloyed joy to look at. His storytelling technique is top level, and he always manages to leave you finishing an issue and wanting the next one immediately (something I've experienced with every Moore comic I have ever read). I do have one problem - his depictions of women.

Terry Moore's women all look stunningly beautiful, although not in a cheesecake style. The problem is that they all look very similar and it can sometimes be difficult to tell one blond from another. That causes some very minor problems here as I'm not sure if the mysterious woman is in some way Rachel, or whether she just looks like Rachel because they both have blond hair. It detracts a little from the enjoyment when you don't know whether something is as it is actually depicted, or if this is because of limitations of the artist.

That final criticism is very minor though, as this is shaping up very promisingly and looks, at this early stage, like it could at least be the equal of Echo and Strangers in Paradise, although it is closer in feel to the more recent strip. You owe it to yourselves as lovers of fine comics to pick this up either in the individual issues or when the trade is issued. If you can wait for the trade then it will read even better than it does now, but I can't wait that long and have to get as much as I can of this story as soon as is possible.