Books: The Shadow

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The Shadow
Vol 1: The Fires Of Creation
Written by Garth Ennis
Art by Aaron Campbell
2013



Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/


All I know about the Shadow is the 1994 film starring Jack Donaghy Alec Baldwin - which I'm guessing I must have seen on it's TV Premier on ITV or BBC1 or whatever (back when it took untold millennia for films to make the journey from the big screen to the small one). Of course - as we all know - nowadays superhero films are basically American's number one export: but all the way back then they were viewed with the same sort of wary eye as films based on computer games [1]: mainly I guess because - one: special effects hadn't really got to the place where you could realistic depict the larger-than-life action scenes that are the lifeblood of the genre and two: well - because they were total rubbish.

And so yeah: if you asked for the sum total of my knowledge about The Shadow I guess I would have mumbled something the evil that lurks in the heart of men (?) said something about the rubbish Jack Donaghy Alec Baldwin film (which in my mind is kinda intermingled with The Rocketeer and the Dick Tracy film: so much so that when I try to picture them I can see Jack Donaghy Alec Baldwin playing all three roles: but what the hey) and then made a "what more do you want from me" kinda shurg and then beckoned you to leave me alone.

So why I am even bothering to write up about this comic? I mean - this is a character who first appeared in 1930 on the radio which - in my mind - means that he's about as ancient as the Greeks, Egyptians and dinosaurs. I mean - at the end of each episode (of the radio thingie) there would be a bit where the Shadow would remind his listeners that "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does not pay... The Shadow knows!" which - for this 21st Century kid is about as lame as "Remember kids - winner's don't do drugs!" or whatever it is Captain Planet that used to say [2].

Well - this shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone paying attention: but obviously the thing that makes things worth reading or not (nine times out of ten) is the writing - and in the case of this book: it's one of my first comic book crushes [3]: Mr "Sweary war-obessed Irishman" aka Garth Ennis.

If you've read any of Garth Ennis' recent work (he started off kinda like a lighted-hearted, young, care-free frat boy with a scatological sense of humour but then slowly grew into a much more bleak, bitter and serious ballader of war stories: namely the first and second world wars - scraping off the bright and shiny paint of the legends and fairytales to expose the hard leaden realities underneath) then you will not be at all surprised to find that the very first line of this supposedly fun, light hearted pulp adventure is: "Between Nineteen thirty-one and nineteen forty-five, Japanese occupation forces killed fifteen million Chinese people."

Wow. Major bummer dude. That's kind of like turning on to watch an episode of Colombo or something - only to see someone being stabbed in horrific close-up and then to see the traumatising effect it has on the victim's friends and family: it's like - yeah: sure - that's the kinda basis of all the genre-fun that we want - but we don't (normally) want to have to confront the actual reality of the situation: we just want the mystery without so much of the murder - you know? The escapist excitement without the awful grisly details. But - of course: what makes Ennis such a gripping read is the way that he likes to mix up his thrills and spills with grit and grime - a gourmet sandwhich with all the trimmings embedded with dirt and bugs  

The strange thing is that - from that stark and brutal opening - the book that switches into a much recognisable pattern of early 20th Century adventure - like an episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles [4] almost: blah blah exposition and same-old same-old and a bunch of situations you've seen a million times before. It's at this point that I started to get concerned: was Garth Ennis phoning it in? Was this just going to be as crappy as what you would normally expect a Shadow comic to be? (Like I think I said: if it wasn't for Ennis' name on the cover - I really don't think I would have bothered to even pick this book up....).

But there wasn't any real need to worry: the first third of the book is just about setting the scene and getting things into place for the mayhem and awfulness that happens later: where one cliché after another is over-turned (or set on fire) and what you thought was merely going to be rip-roaring mutates into something else entirely: and - dotted around here and there - a few typical Ennis touches (one character in particular plays like an ancestor of Cal “a cop on the edge” Hicks from the Jody and T.C one off special The Good Old Boys (as collected in Preacher: Ancient History): which is all to the good).

So yeah - for a superhero whose powers are way way less than super [5]: this is actual a pretty solid reading experience. All of which goes to show - that even the lamest worn-out character can - in the right hands - be grafted on to a story that's well worth your time.

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[1] And for more on that subject I would recommend this fantastic Grantland article: Hollywood Archaeology: The Super Mario Bros. Movie Unearthing a major disaster to learn the lessons held within. 

[2] Oh my god: having a quick look at the Captain Planet and the Planeteers wikipedia page and it sounds amazing (plus: it gets bonus points for the non-ironic use of the word: "edutainment") and I now kinda want to re-watch the special episodes: "The episode titled "Mind Pollution" (1991) was notable in that it did not deal with the environment, but rather with the issue of drug abuse. This was explained by the fact that the characters thought of drug addiction as "pollution of the mind." The episode revolved around an epidemic of a designer drug known as "Bliss" created by Verminous Skumm (which is such a brillant name for a villain: it's like Dickens on an off day going - "yeah fine whatever: we'll just call him Verminous Skumm."). It was also known for being quite a dark episode in the Captain Planet series, as it allowed a scene of Linka's cousin Boris bleeding from his arms (!?!) after jumping through a window and dying from an overdose of the drug." (Note: and on the subject of Captain Planet - for anyone who hasn't seen it already - check out Don Cheadle's take).  

[3] Like I think I may have already said: I first read Preacher at exactly the right age.

[4] Yeah - in the early 1990s they made a TV show of Indiana Jones and - yes - it is almost exactly as awful and boring and bland as can probably imagine.

[5] According to his wikipedia page: "Skilled marksman and martial artist" "Master of disguise" "Master of stealth" "Able to make himself nearly invisible to the naked eye" "Can alter and control a person's thoughts and perceptions" = YAWN.

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Links: Comic Book Resources Review of The Shadow #1, Geeks of Doom Review of The Shadow #3 / The Shadow #4, Comics Beat Article: The Shadow and Garth Ennis – A Review of the First Script.

Further reading: Battlefields, War Stories, The Marvels Project, The Twelve, Alan's War: The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope, Preacher, Turf, Tom Strong, Ministry of Space.

Profiles: Garth Ennis.

All comments welcome.

Events: Islington Comic Forum 2013/06

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Ok. So you know what? It's kinda hard to describe properly what a typical meeting of the Islington Comic Forum consists of (relax: - I'm not going to use that hoary old cliché about there's not really any such thing as a typical meeting of the Islington Comic Forum because - we're better than that - right?) - I mean: in the strict physical sense - it's a big table full of comic books (at a rough guesstimate I'd say there's usually around - what? - 150 books available for people to take home at each session) and a bunch of people (typically we get about a dozen or so people turn up) all from various walks of life and all with different backgrounds (yeah - I know you're thinking that's it probably all nerdy white guys - but seriously - we're as multicultural and diverse as a corporate video - with an age span from 6 to 90) all sitting around and discussing / arguing / sharing their thoughts and ideas about one of the most exciting and diverse mediums on the planet (nowadays if you're talking about something that's just "all about superheroes" my first guess is you're talking about films - but whatever). It's a little bit more chaotic than a book club but with the same sort of relaxed and open friendly atmosphere: all presided over by an excitable librarian (that would be me - hi!) who has pretty much read every comic book out there (even the terrible ones) and is willing to tell you where you're going wrong with whatever you're reading (and is most happy when people disagree with him). If you're curious as to what sort of books we discuss - then take a look around this blog - every book here has been included at one point or another. And if you want to know what sort of things we talk about: - well - it's never really that properly thought out but we touch upon everything from the best way to construct a story, to how far genre limits can go all the way to if Frank Miller was right about who would win in a fight between Batman and Superman.

Books available this month will include (unless - of course - they are reserved by other people): Blackgas / Hector Umbra / Prophet / The Shadow / Judge Anderson: Satan / Planetary / Turf / Locke & Key / Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City / Hewligan's Haircut / Alan's War / The Manara Library / Pride and Prejudice / Dan and Larry in Don't Do That! / Top 10 / Top 10: The Forty-Niners / Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 05 / Cradlegrave / Special Forces / The Essential Dykes To Watch Out For / Saga / Kingdom Come / Superman: All Star Superman / Superman: Secret Identity / Blacksad: Somewhere Between The Shadows / Elk's Run / I'm Never Coming Back plus many, many, many (many!) more.

There's also a book of the month (so that at least we can all talk about something we've all read). This month it's: Couch Fiction written by Philippa Perry art by Junko Graat. If you get a chance please read it. You can reserve yourself a copy here. (For those of you that don't get the chance - don't worry - you can still come and join in with the discussions).

The next one is: Tuesday the 4th of June / 6:00pm to 7:30pm in the Upstairs Hall at North Library Manor Gardens N7 6JX. Here is a map. Come and join us. It's free. All welcome.

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For more information (or if you have any questions and/or would like to be added to our email list: we send out a reminder a week before with a list of the books that are going to be available) you can email us here.

All comments welcome.

Books: The Manhattan Projects

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The Manhattan Projects
Vol. 1
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Nick Pitarra
2012



Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/


Would it not be enough for me to just say: "you should really read this comic - it's really actually just totally great" and just leave it at that? No? You want me to say more? Pad it out a little? Well - ok then.

I came to The Manhattan Projects pretty much totally cold. The only name that meant anything to me - Jonathan Hickman - has been responsible for books of such varying qualities [1] that at this point
you could pretty much replace his name with a question mark and I'd had just as much of a clue as to what exactly I was letting myself in for.... I mean: I guess it would have some sort of gee-wiz attitude to science (like one of the kids from Tom Strong grown to semi-maturity) but without the need to obfuscate that you sometimes get with Grant Morrison or (at a push) Warren Ellis: nah - Hickman is always so to the point that I doubt that "obfuscate" is even in his vocabulary: he's more like the guy who cuts all his big epic concepts into small bite-sized pieces and then serves them with some salad and extra mayo in a tasty white bun. And as for the artist - Nick Pitarra - well I'd never heard of him - so I didn't even know what the book was going to look like [2].

So when I got a copy of Vol 1 in my hand I opened it up with a pair of tweezers - ready for anything: prepared for the worst (while hoping for the best) and - well - boom. I don't know how exactly - but somehow it managed to get behind and whack my brain from an angle that I wasn't quite expecting: which (in case you couldn't work this out yourself) is almost exactly the kind of thing I love.

And in terms of Hickman-ology: well - I think that I'm starting to get a grip on him - the way I see it - it's like this: with some authors - even when doing work-for-hire stuff so that they can just do some blah and cash a big fat cheque at the end of it (am thinking mainly of Alan Moore and Warren Ellis here - but hell: it's not even like that kind of attitude is just restricted to the world of comic books [3]) the stuff that's put out without that much passion is still well worth a read: but Hickman - well for this reader at least: I can really tell when he's faking it - and (well gee) - it's kind of embarrassing when he does [4]. The flip-side of that tho is that when he's doing something that he really believes in and is willing to commit to (and isn't bound by the restrictions of mainstream comics [5]) well - then you get the good stuff.

Or - to put it another way: it's like that friend with the varying moods. Some days he's awful, irritable and grumpy like a camel with twisted bowels: other times he's polite and socially respectable - but just kind of hangs there like magnolia wallpaper and then - somedays (every once in a while) - they're like a beautiful sunny day where there's not a cloud in the sky and every traffic light you get to turns green.

If you still want more: well - the thing it made me think of (in a very roundabout sort of way) is the story of Syd Barrett after he was kicked out of Pink Floyd: (I don't know if this is true or not) but it's been said that he used to spend all day in bed - not because he was lazy - but because he believed that from that starting point it was possible for him to get up and do absolutely anything: he could start a new band, become a painter, king of the world - anything anything anything. Only (his thinking went) as soon as he got out of bed all of those possibilities would collapse into one: and no matter how great that single possibility would be - it wasn't worth sacrificing all the other ones: and so - he stayed in bed, lying completely still - keeping all those possibilities alive.

And if you want to know why The Manhattan Projects reminds me of that - well: you're going to have to read it to find out. Sorry.

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[1] All the way from the sickingly lows of his stint on the Fantastic Four (which I'd say is one of the very worst comics I've read in recent years) to the middling middle of The Red Wing and his science-fictional take on The Ultimates all the way up to his very splendid S.H.I.E.L.D. which left me with a warm all-over glow that I still treasure today.

[2] Except: oops - when I tagged this post - his name popped up already loaded: which is how I discovered that he was actually the artist on another Hickman book called: The Red Wing (which is also good - but (for me): not as good as The Manhattan Projects - which (I guess) I'd mostly put down to The Red Wing (because it's just one book) seemed kinda rushed and squeezed in - while Manhattan Projects has a lot more space to kind of take things slow and roll out it's (many splendored) ideas one at a time. And as for what his like art looks like - well: it's like Geoff Darrow: only it's like ketchup instead of mustard (hope that helps).

[3] Steven Soderbergh famously has a "one for them, one for me" approach to film-making that seems to suit him down to the ground (which is only confused by the fact that a lot of the time his "one for them" films are much better than the "one for him" ones: but go figure).

[4] Meg Ryan he is not.

[5] And - well yeah: I guess that's my point - some people do really well when you give them somesort of restriction to work within: but Hickman's wings and sense of imagination are too unwieldy to be contained in a small box - so when you put him in a small space: the stuff he comes out with feels stifled and (dur) boxed in but if you set him free and leave him to his own nutty devices - well - then (not always - but mostly) then he starts to get some altitude and starts to really let loose and (goddamnit) he spreads his wings and soars.

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Links: Patient Comic Addict Review,

Further reading: S.H.I.E.L.D., The Red Wing, Feynman, B.P.R.D., Planetary, The Invisibles, The Ultimates, Prophet, Hard Boiled.

Books: Hellblazer: The Family Man

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Hellblazer: The Family Man
Written by Jamie Delano
Art by Ron Tiner, Sean Phillips, Steve Pugh, and Dean Motter
2008




Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/


Most of you out there probably already know all the Hellblazer trivia already - but for those who don't - let's just do it all at once (yeah? Cool):

John Constantine was created by beardy comics grandmaster Alan Moore all the back in the mid 1980s when he was writing Swamp Thing. Legend has it that his sole reason for existing was that the Swamp Thing artists (Steve Bissette and John Totleben) wanted to draw a character who looked like Sting [1] (hey - it was the 1980s ok? Totally different time). I couldn't say for sure whether it was the Stingness of the way the character looked or (more probably) because everyone loves a good anti-hero in a trenchcoat who wields magic less like some airy-fairy mystical delicacy and more like a dirty, greasy hammer to throw at someone's face - but the character made such a big splash that the bigwigs at DC thought it would be a good idea to give him his own series: and thus was born a comic called Hellraiser (or at least - that's what it was going to be called until Clive Barker's film came out a few months before the first issue hit the stands and thus - well: we got the sightly less apt: Hellblazer [2]).

Yes - the world at large probably knows him best (if they know him at all) from the Keanu Reeves film [3] which committed the outrageous crime of recasting a blonde Liverpudlian as - well - Keanu Reeves (who is - breaking news - neither blonde nor from Liverpool) but somehow still (speaking personally) did have a small hint of the same rugged charm (there's a moment towards the end that I particularly liked that involved a well-placed middle finger that seemed pretty spot on: but - then again - I've only ever seen it once and ain't in a particular rush to ever do it again so maybe it wasn't that good after all? [4]): even if every "true" Hellblazer fan regards it in the same way as you would an ugly boil on the back of your hand that leads you to wearing long sleeves in the hope that it'll cover it up so you won't have to talk about it (which - when you consider how amazing a Hellblazer film could be [5] makes a certain sense I guess).

Ok: with all of that purged - let's get down to business:

So. I kinda got it in my head that it would be a good idea to go through the Hellblazer comics and write a separate thingie on here for each one [6]. I mean - why not right? Everyone likes a little bit of John Constantine now and again ("a working-class magician, occult detective, and con man stationed in London. He is known for his endless cynicism, deadpan snarking, ruthless cunning, and constant chain smoking" - I mean - what's not to like?) and seeing how he's been going since the late 1980s and attracted a whole host of comics writing talent [7] along the way - it's not like there's a lack of fun, weird and strange comics to choose from. Only - well - (and this has been a sticking point for a while now): the comic that started the whole thing off (Hellblazer: Original Sins) - there's only one copy available in the whole of Islington and - last year - someone took it out and (I mean - so far) hasn't brought it back (but - what the hey: I live in hope).

Having been waiting a while to start off at Part One I finally decided - oh well: let's take things from Part Two instead and maybe we can double-back on our tracks some other time. Plus - you know: mostly it doesn't make any real difference what order you read your Hellblazer's in: John Constantine is always going to be his bitter old moany self - falling head first into a whole mess of trouble and - for me anyway: the only way I've ever really experienced Hellblazer is by reading random trades here and there so I guess it's somewhat apt that things aren't completely plain sailing (and I'm sure John wouldn't want it any other way).

But I should probably just quit it with all this prancing around and blah blah blah and actually get down to it and write a few words about the book we have in question: The Family Man.

Of course (wouldn't you know it: just my luck) as opposed to the clean fresh start I was hoping for The Family Man begins in medias res with the events of Original Sins still hanging around like the smell from the party the night before - it doesn't really matter tho - it's just that seeing how Hellblazer was still just starting out: it's acting as if it was all telling the same story rather than (which I guess happened slowly over time) different installments of a seemingly never-ending franchise: I realise that I may have mentioned the X-files quite a few times on this blog (hey: what can I say? It was one of my must-watch TV shows when I was growing up) but it's like the difference between the first seasons when Mulder and Scully would be seriously affected by the stuff that they saw [8] and the later seasons (when me (and everyone else) stopped watching) when their encounters with the strange and paranormal would be treated as common-place and just part of their daily routine. The reason for this (obviously) is that when they were just starting out they had no idea / no real hope that anyone would be paying that much attention or that they would have to keep spinning out the same form of stories year-in year-out which lead them to be much more reckless with their characters and their situations (and the way that the situations impact upon the characters) which leads to the sort of unexpected storytelling that you get in: well - like you get in The Family Man. Of course - as time goes on: things start to solidify - and because people have certain exceptions - well: it becomes much harder to mess with the status quo and be adventurous with who the characters are [9]: yeah?

So: yeah - even tho the artwork is pretty much of that kinda scrappy 1980s style (these issues were originally published between 1989 - 1990): that those of you of a delicate disposition might have a tough time getting used to it [10]: but there are still places here and there where they manage to do some cool stuff (I liked the scene where they're sitting in front of the fire and the colours are all yellow and orange: I mean - yeah - maybe they just did it because they couldn't be bothered to mix up their palette at all - but still: I think it's pretty effective nonetheless). Plus (oh man) you will have to be willing to give Jamie Delano's purple prose a pass [11] or at least just hold your nose during the most particularly repungent parts. But - damnit: I'd say that it's worth the effort: there's a quote from Delano that I've seen reprinted a lot in quite a few places that lays down his motivation for writing Hellblazer to be: "...generally I was interested in commenting on 1980s Britain. That was where I was living, it was shit, and I wanted to tell everybody." [12]: and - man: that kinda of attitude and determination to wipe the reader's nose in some of the most depressing aspects of the period certainly comes through on every page: not that it's practically preachy (except for maybe the last episode in the book: but that's so surreal that I'm even sure if I could tell you what it's about apart from the fact that - you know: everything is rubbish and all people everywhere are awful) the first story in the collection (Larger than Life) is like a B-side from The Unwritten and is of a certain sort of flavour that (and I'd say thankfully to this) John Constantine never really returned to: and the main bit in the middle (The Family Man) is constructed like a really good 1980s Thriller - the type best watched on VHS: like something directed by Brian De Palma - dirty, nasty and cheap - yet still completely mesmerizing.

And - of course: the best bit about all of this - is that this is only still just the beginning.

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[1] Alan Moore from this here: "I can state categorically that the character only existed because Steve and John wanted to do a character that looked like Sting. Having been given that challenge, how could I fit Sting into Swamp Thing? I have an idea that most of the mystics in comics are generally older people, very austere, very proper, very middle class in a lot of ways. They are not at all functional on the street. It struck me that it might be interesting for once to do an almost blue-collar warlock. Somebody who was streetwise, working class, and from a different background than the standard run of comic book mystics. Constantine started to grow out of that"

[2] Which - and is this just me? - always just kinda makes me think of a particularly devilish piece of a school uniform....

[3] Which - confusingly - was titled not Hellblazer - but "Constantine" (which - if you ask me: is a pretty boring/shoddy title for a film - but what do I know: it earned nearly $30 million at the North American box office on its opening weekend so it must have been doing something right I guess): which lead to the comics (hoping to get themselves a few pieces of that sweet and tasty money-pie) to redo the "John Constantine" above the title from thin little slender letters into big chunky bold ones.

[4] Of course the question is: who would have been better cast? Daniel Craig? Paul Bettany? John Lydon? Or - if you wanted to get meta about it - Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner?

[5] Although - if you ask me: if you really wanted to make an adaptation: the best thing would be to make a Hellblazer TV show: I mean - looking back at the twenty years plus of comics it's not like you would have any trouble finding a decent story-line to sustain you. But whatever.

[6] Of course - if you look on the right hand side under "Books" - you will notice that there's already entries for Hellblazer: City of Demons and Hellblazer: Pandemonium: but (for the moment at least) they're barely fleshed out - seeing how they were written all the way back when my intention was just to create a big fat Hellblazer entry and stick all the books together in the same place (City of Demons and Pandemonium are both kind of one-off specials - (if you check the wikipedia page on the List of Hellblazer publications - they're listed under "Other collections" and "original graphic novels") so I figured it didn't matter that I had them buttoned off separate): but - blah blah - whatever.

[7] Including (amongst others) Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, Brian Azzarello, Mike Carey and at one point - Ian Ranken (but we'll get to all of those - hopefully - in time).

[8] Most notably I'd say in an episode called Darkness Falls which ends (spoiler alert I guess) with Mulder and Scully held up in a quarantine facility: which is the kind of thing that - as things went on and the creators realised that they were going to be able to get more than one season out of this - the show just didn't have much time for anymore.

[9] Then again: things are a bit more complicated than I might be making them out to be: because - even tho it may become harder to wreck violence upon your characters: it does allow you to be a little bit more exciting with the types of stories you tell (which is why a lot of the best X-Files episodes (Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose, Jose Chung's From Outer Space, Small Potatoes and Bad Blood) happened in the mid-Seasons: as the set-up was solid enough that you could start to shift things around in a cool way.

[10] But then - my feeling is: that if you're reading or watching anything that's a little old-fashioned then you kinda of need to be willing to adjust your perspective just a little: it's my friends who can't take the first Terminator film seriously because the special effects are a little - well - ropey and argue that it's a problem with the movie itself - while I'm much more of the thought that you just need to be willing to relax a little and not try to hold everything up to modern standards (well: in most cases at least).

[11] I did write down some of the most toe-curling examples as I went along - but now I can't find the piece of paper I wrote them on and I don't have the book to hand: so you'll just have to venture in yourself and find the most egregious lines on your lonesome. (Sorry).

[12] You can find the original interview (with also includes Garth Ennis): here.

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Links: Now Read This Review.

Further reading: Hellblazer: City of Demons, Hellblazer: Pandemonium, The Unwritten, Swamp Thing, Cradlegrave, Neil Gaiman's Midnight Days, Signal to Noise, The Sandman.

All comments welcome.

Events: Word Festival Talk: Who Is Afraid of Comics?

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Wednesday 15 May / 6.30pm - 8:00pm 

Central Library 2 Fieldway Crescent, N5 1PF

What lies behind the moral panics. media scares and strict censorship that have besieged comics in Britain and around the world? Why have they been repeatedly the targets of campaigns and censorship? Is there something inherently dangerous, or radicalising, about the form's weaving of words and pictures?

From their 19th century precursors in Penny Dreadfuls to the Fifties Horror Comics, from the taboo-smashing Undergrounds to Manga and Graphic Novels today, Paul Gravett explores the controversies behind the comic medium’s often fraught maturing process and the continuing issues of political correctness and the right to offend.