Rixosous

Rachel Rising, Volume 1: The Shadow of Death

"Obviously, I'm not dead, Jet.  Look at me."

"You look dead!"

"I'm having a rough night, okay?"

Talented comic writer-artist Terry Moore, who has previously taken on friendship (and then some) in Strangers in Paradise and science fiction in Echo, is moving along to the horror genre with his new book, Rachel Rising.  Issue-by-issue comic collecting makes me crazy nowadays, so I was happy that the first six-issue collection, Rachel Rising Volume 1: The Shadow of Death, was already out by the time my friend Serge tipped me off about the comic.  That isn't too say that waiting for the next collection won't be torture!

In a way, Moore is jumping on the zombie bandwagon, but being Moore, he doesn't do it like anyone else.  Rachel Rising centers around the town of Manson, which is just as creepy as its name and was the site of a mass execution of witches centuries ago.  The entire town is, in effect, an ancient graveyard.  You just know that isn't going to work out well.

Echo: Volume 4: Collider

I made a comics store run right before the long weekend and picked up the latest Echo compilation, Echo Volume 4: Collider (Abstract Studio Comics, 2010), which collects issues #16-20.  I enjoyed the first three Echo compilations (here), but as the story picks up speed my interest is rapidly increasing.

Note: spoilers below for Volumes 1-3, but I think I've avoided any for Volume 4.

Crécy

On 26 August 1346, modern warfare changed forever...

Neil Willcox first brought Warren Ellis' Crécy (Avatar Press, 2007; art by Raulo Caceres) to my attention about a year ago in the comments thread for Aetheric Mechanics, another graphic novel by Ellis which just missed last year's Hugo ballot.  It then took me a year to get around to acquiring and reading a copy.  It was certainly worth the wait.  Crécy is a sort of demi-historical story, with the setting, events, and technology historically accurate as far as I can tell, but using a narrator with an entirely modern sensibility and knowledge base who addresses the modern reader directly:

They've invaded us so many times that the French probably call us parsnip-eating surrender monkeys at this point.

That's one of the more printable quotes from William of Stonham, a longbowman in the service of Edward III during his extended pillaging tour of France in 1346.  William has what might politely be called a very Anglo-Saxon vocabulary and uses it quite freely.

Strange: Beginning and Endings

This is one of those collections that I didn't even make into the house with.  I finished reading it in the front seat of my car, with dusk falling and tears running down my face, nearly making myself late for my dance class.

Doctor Strange was where it all started with me with Marvel comics, sitting in Jacqueline Lichtenberg's living room as a young teenager, reading away the long shabbos afternoons.  I was a subscriber to Elfquest and getting my issues by mail.  Doctor Strange made me venture inside my local comics store -- does it still exist, I wonder? -- in search of new issues, and then of back issues as I slowly became a collector as well as a reader.  Through the great crossover story with Tomb of Dracula and the Montesi Formula, I discovered the work of Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan (who would inspire Joss Whedon in creating Buffy the Vampire Slayer and thus become the invisible creative stepparents of many enthusiastic fans).  And somewhere in there, I came across The Uncanny X-Men, which would for a few glorious years be my great Marvel Universe passion.

But Doctor Strange was first.  Stephen Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme.  The Dread Dormammu.  The Dark Dimension.  The Sanctum Sanctorum.  (Marvel loved its alliteration, yes it did...)  White haired, purple-clad Clea.  Wong.  That ludicrous red and blue costume.  Oh, yes.

Echo: Volumes 1-3

Terry Moore is one of the few people in comics whose stuff I'll pick up on spec.  I went into withdrawal after he ended Strangers in Paradise a few years ago, and waited to pick up his new book, Echo, until he had a substantial amount of it out.  But I decided over the holidays that I couldn't wait any longer -- its run started in 2008 -- so I now have the first three trade paperback compilations: Moon Lake (2008), Atomic Dreams (2009), and Desert Run (2009), which between them cover issues #1-15 out of the 18 so far.  The issues and the compilations are all independently published by Moore under the imprint Abstract Studio.

Unlike SiP, which was often a bit surreal but essentially set in our own reality, Echo is science fiction.  Let me see what I can do to summarize without spoilers.

Worst. X-Men. Fanfic. Ever.

And the best taking apart ever by Rob Bricken over at Topless Robot:

It's like Babelfish decided to write its own erotic fan fiction.

I'm not going to dignify the writer by mentioning his name or by linking to his fanfic, but you can read Rob's fabulous commentary -- and the entire fic -- here.  For the first part of it, I was laughing so hard I was actually wheezing while tears (of hilarity) streamed down my face.  But be warned: it turns graphically violent (rape, murder, cannibalism, etc.) by the middle.  If you're freaking at the first kitten, stop there, 'cause it gets a lot worse.

(I mean, the violence gets worse.  The writing...really can't get worse.)

Hat tip to Paul Constant at Slog for this one.

Tales of the Slayers

I never actually finished watching Joss Whedon's two biggest television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. I got as far as season five (of seven) and season two (of six), respectively, before burning out, though I do mean to go back and watch the rest one of these days.  But I found out at Whedon's talk at Wesleyan back in the spring that not only did Whedon admit the influence of my beloved Tomb of Dracula on Buffy, he'd actually gotten ToD artist Gene Colan to illustrate the 1970s slayer story in the comic book anthology Tales of the Slayers (Dark Horse Books, 2001) by way of a little subtle homage.  So I put it on my family wish list and promptly forgot about it until I unwrapped it on Christmas day.

First thought after reading it: what a depressing bunch of stories!

Second thought: okay, to be fair, they weren't all depressing, and the sad tone shouldn't have been a surprise anyway, since he'd made the point in the television show that most Slayers did not survive very long and that Buffy was unique in having a cluster of friends and a life outside vampire-slaying.

I'm going to talk rather carefully around the plots of the stories to avoid spoilers (though since this came out in 2001, presumably anyone who cares has read it already), and since I expect that this will only be of interest to Buffy fans, I'm not going to bother with background.  So if you know nothing about the Buffy universe, the rest of the post probably won't make much sense.

Aetheric Mechanics

I fully meant to read Warren Ellis' graphic novella Aetheric Mechanics (Apparat, 2008; art credits Gianluca Pagliarini, Chris Dreier, Juanmar) before the Hugo nomination deadline so I could see whether I wanted to nominate it in the one-shot Graphic Story category.  I didn't quite manage it due to an oversupply of life the last month.  But I finally sat down with it today and enjoyed the story a great deal, though the art is a little bit busy for my tastes.  At a little under fifty pages, it's quite a fast read.  While it doesn't matter for the Graphic Story category, I wonder if it would even qualify as a [Hugo category] novella by word count alone.

The story begins in March, 1907, with one Captain Doctor Robert Watcham returning to London from the front lines of an unspecified war.  It's quickly clear that this is a Steampunk sort of alternate history: the war is being conducted in space as well as on Earth by the Royal Navy Outer Service, and the enemy is...not what I expected.

"Since Ruritania annexed Grand Fenwick, they've been trying to launch the odd picket overhead.  What with that and American privateers spotted around Mars, it's a busy time."

Trail of Indiscretion #9

I picked up Trail of Indiscretion #9 on a whim during a fast wander around the dealer's room at Darkovercon last November, but it only just surfaced in my to-read pile.  I'd never heard of most of the names in the table of contents, or even the publisher (Fortress Publishing), though it seems to have a small track record of comics and magazines published over the past two years.  But the table-minding editor was amusing and wrote me a haiku on the spot, which was a clever way to get me to hang around the table long enough to want something to read.  I picked up an issue at random and was intrigued by the artwork.  I've no idea how they make these smaller-than-small press things work financially, but it's so nice to see people trying to make a go of genre fiction periodicals that I figured I could spare the $5 (minus a five-cent credit for what I paid for the haiku) for 48 pages of content and a full-color cover.