Welcome to Christmasland. I hope you’ll survive your visit.
Because I love Halloween – it’s my favorite holiday by far – I’m always on the lookout for Halloweenesque comics and stories. Wraith: Welcome to Christmasland by Joe Hill and Charles Paul Wilson III fits the bill nicely. I loved this very dark tale about ageless madman Charlie Manx driving around in his a vintage 1938 Rolls Royce Wraith, taking sinners to Christmasland. The car runs on human souls instead of gasoline. How’s that for alternative fuel.
Wraith: Welcome to Christmasland starts when three convicts are being transferred in a bus by two cops. In an attempt to free one of the convicts, an accomplice at the edge of the road shoots at the bus and makes it crash. With nowhere left to turn, one of the escapees calls in a favor to Charlie Manx, who picks up the crooks and the two surviving cops. In his Rolls Royce he takes them on a road trip to Christmasland.
Now, Christmasland may sound like a theme park, and in a way, you may call it that. It’s just that Christmasland resembles Christmas in hell more than it does the cozy little family gatherings we see in the movies about the holiday season. Just imagine the movie Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmasbeing directed by horror master Wes Craven and you get an idea what Wraith feels like.
Christmasland is a magical place where it always seems to be snowing and where you don’t have to wait in line for the rides. Children never get old, but have the nasty demonic tendency to kill people with scissors or just take a bite out of them with their very sharp and big teeth.
Joe Hill, writer of novels and comics, – mostly very well written, dark horror stories with magical twists – introduced Charlie Manx and Christmasland in the New York Times bestselling novel, NOS4A2. The comic Wraith serves as a prequel to the novel and collects the limited-series Wraith: Welcome to Christmasland and an added prologue in which the history of Manx is explored. Manx has kept himself alive for over a century by draining an essential life force out of children, warping them into little monsters. When Manx is done with them he takes them to Christmasland, where they live on in an eternal Christmas Day.
Cosplayers, ik ben er gek op. Mensen die zo gepassioneerd zijn over een bepaalde serie, comics en de personages daarin dat ze zich als die personages gaan verkleden op een Comic Con. De eerste editie van Dutch Comic Con waren ze niet te missen: Batmen, Darth Vaders, Jokers, Deadpools en Ghostbusters… Ze waren overal.
Goed, ik geef toe dat ik niet zo thuis ben in anime en manga, dus bij veel kortgerokte meisjes wist ik niet precies wie ze voor moesten stellen, maar wat maakt het uit. Het geheel zag er vrolijk en kleurrijk uit. Bezoekers wilden maar wat graag op de foto met deze aangeklede liefhebbers dus er werd veelvuldig geposeerd.
Op Facebook staan op de pagina van Dutch Comic Con oproepjes van Cosplayers of mensen vooral ook die foto’s met hen online willen zetten en taggen. Wat dat betreft heeft het ook wel weer iets narcistisch, net als vloggers die het merendeel van hun video in beeld zijn en niet het evenement dat ze bezoeken. Maar laat ik daar niet over kniesoren, want het is nu eenmaal de tijd dat Narcissus regeert.
Wie vooral met stripbeurzen als die het Stripschap bekend is, stond in het laatste weekend van maart wel even te kijken in de jaarbeurs te Utrecht. Een stripbeurs waar duizenden mensen op afkomen? Ongehoord in Nederland zou je denken. Voor de stand van Strip2000 stond een lange rij voor Kenny Rubenis, de bedenker en tekenaar van de strip Dating for Geeks. Natuurlijk, die strip gaat over de bezoekers van Comic Con, maar toch heel tof dat de albums als warme broodjes over de toonbank gingen. Ook de stripwinkels die aanwezig waren boerden goed gisteren. En niet alleen in het geekdepartment: Robert van der Kroft verkocht ook veel Claire-albums zaterdag.
Geeks voor Kenny. Foto: Aimée de Jongh.
Ook bij de stand van the American Book Center liep het storm. Wat dat betreft werd er goede zaken gedaan. Maar vergeet niet dat er achter het prachtige circus van cosplay een geldmachine schuilgaat.
Wie wilde poseren bij de Batmobile of de Delorean uit Back to the Future moest daar 5 euro voor neertellen. Veel mensen kwamen voor de bekende koppen uit de film- en televisiewereld. Voor een handtekening betaal je al snel 30 euro, voor een foto met je held(in) meer.
Zelf hoef ik niet zo nodig op de foto met een acteur van een film of serie. En een handtekeningenjager ben ik nooit geweest. Ook niet als ik stripmakers interview trouwens, wat de belangrijkste reden was voor mijn bezoek aan Dutch Comic Con. Ik had een halfuur met de Britse stripmaker Andrew Wildman. Die heeft Transformers en Spider-Man getekend en heeft nu zijn eerste zelfgeschreven graphic novel uit: Horizon.
Alle vette vingers van de bezoekers moeten natuurlijk wel weer van de Batmobile afgepoetst worden.
Helemaal vlekkeloos was de eerste editie niet. Enkele gasten zegden hun komst van tevoren af vanwege verschillende redenen. Dat cancelations werden niet altijd even snel op de site van Dutch Comic Con gecommuniceerd. Ook hoorde ik dat sommige uitgevers die wel graag op de beurs hadden gestaan, geen contact kregen met de organisatie. En het was erg druk. Die hal met stripwinkels kon je op sommige momenten niet doorkomen. Het leek de Kalverstraat wel op zaterdag. Ook zou de Comic Con wat panels en dat soort dingen kunnen gebruiken. Er waren wel Q&A’s met de acteurs, maar een paar leuke thematische panels over comics of televisieseries zouden goed passen in het programma.
Toch ben ik als stripjournalist erg blij met de komst van Dutch Comic Con. Komen we dan eindelijk van het stoffige imago met strips in bananendozen af? De toekomst ziet er positief en vol cosplayers uit.
Stripmaker Marcel Ruijters krijgt dit jaar de Stripschapprijs voor zijn gehele oeuvre. Op dit moment zit Ruijters in de laatste fase van zijn graphic novel over schilder Jheronimus Bosch die in september gaat uitkomen.
Genoeg reden om hem wat vragen te stellen dus toen ik hem zondag 15 februari tegenkwam in the American Book Center in Amsterdam.
Zondagmiddag interviewde ik Derf Backderf in the American Book Center in Amsterdam. Backderf was in Nederland om zijn graphic novel My Friend Dahmer te promoten die recent in het Nederlands bij Scratch Books is verschenen.
Minneboo en Backderf. Foto: Melissa Halley
My Friend Dahmer gaat over de tijd dat Backderf op de middelbare school zat met Jefrey Dahmer die later maar liefst 17 jonge mannen vermoordde. Hij had seks met de lijken en soms at hij ook een stukje van zijn slachtoffers. Geen luchtig onderwerp dus.
Toch was het erg leuk om Backderf te spreken en ook een beetje gek, want de volgende dag interviewde ik hem in het café van het Americain voor de VPRO Gids. Zondagmiddag was dus een soort opwarmertje. Nu ja, vooral voor mij dan, want Derf was de afgelopen dagen in Frankrijk en België al flink ondervraagd over zijn boek. En vaak kreeg hij natuurlijk dezelfde vragen gesteld. Zo gaat dat op een perstoer.
(Dinsdagmiddag is Backderf om 17 uur in Lambiek).
Minneboo en Backderf. Foto: Linda Delis
De belangstelling in Frankrijk en België was groot geweest. In Nederland was ik een van de weinige journalisten die interesse heeft voor het werk van Backderf, vertelde uitgever Hansje Joustra. Strip blijft in hier toch een stiefkindje terwijl België en Frankrijk echte striplanden zijn.
Voor mij mag dat de pret niet drukken, al betekent het wel dat ik als freelancer lang niet altijd mijn artikelen over het beeldverhaal ergens kwijt kan.
Het gesprek in het Americain op maandag duurde lang. Derf had er zin in. Vooral toen ik het ook wilde hebben over zijn strip Punk Rock and Trailer Parks. Een hilarische strip over de punkscene in Akron Ohio in de vroege jaren tachtig. Het hoofdpersonage Otto, die zichzelf the Baron noemt, is zeer sympathiek en komt erg grappig uit de hoek. De strip zit vol gastoptredens van punkers als Klaus Nomi, The Ramones en Wendy O. Williams. Popjournalist Lester Bangs komt ook even langs.
The Ramones in actie
Na het interview hebben we nog wat gepraat over de Amerikaanse stripwereld. Derf maakte nog een tekening in mijn exemplaar van Punk Rock and Trailer Parks. Het tekenen heb ik op video vastgelegd.
Binnenkort alles over Mijn vriend Dahmeren Punk Rock and Trailer Parks in de VPRO Gids.
On July 22nd 1991 serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested for the murder of seventeen young men. An inmate killed him on November 28th three years later. In the highly compelling and original graphic novel My Friend Dahmer comic book artist Derf Backderf looks back on his high school years and his friendship with classmate Jeffrey Dahmer.
The weird kid
Backderf shows that Dahmer lived an isolated life during his high school years in the mid-seventies. Classmates thought the tall guy with glasses was quite strange: Dahmner threw fake epileptic fits and mimicked the slurred speech and spastic tics of someone with cerebral palsy. Dahmer’s act made him somewhat of a celebrity in school, or a mascot, as Backderf describes it. Backderf himself was part of the so-called Dahmer fanclub, imitating his movements and Dahmerisms with his friends. The high point of this act and Dahmer’s questionable celebrity status at school would be a Saturday in which schoolmates paid Dahmer to act this way during a visit to the mall. The students would look on from a short distance as Dahmer freaked out innocent shoppers and shop personnel.
Later Backderf would discover that Jeffrey was imitating his mother, Joyce Dahmer, a woman plagued with depression and who had terrible fits. Dahmer’s home life wasn’t really pleasant: his parents fought most of the time until they decided to get a divorce, which became rancorous. Busy with their own problems they ignored Jeffrey all together, and he kept his homosexual tendencies to himself. He kept them hidden from everyone, but that wasn’t uncommon in the seventies. Of course, being gay doesn’t make one a serial killer, but when Damher fantasized about male lovers, they were dead and he had sex with their bodies. In Junior Year of high school Jeffrey took to drinking. Knowing too well his sexual urges were sick and twisted, he tried to dull these urges with alcohol.
‘How did he get away with being stinking drunk during school hours?’ Backderf asks in his graphic novel. ‘It still blows my mind. Every kid knew what Dahmer was doing… But not a single teacher or school administrator noticed a thing. Not one. Where they really that oblivious? Or was it that they just didn’t want to be bothered?’
Backderf makes a case for the adults being absent one way or another as the reason Dahmer’s descent into becoming a murderous monster was never noticed by anyone. ‘”I can’t say there were any signs he was different or strange,” one of the school guidance counselors would later state’, Backderf writes. After graduating high school Dahmer got even more isolated and shed his humanity forever. Soon he would pick up an innocent hitchhiker who became his first victim.
Cult classic
Backderf worked on this story for years. He self-published a comic about Dahmer in 2002. That 24-page story has become something of a cult classic and got nominated for an Eisner Award. Still, Backderf wasn’t really happy with that version of the story. Because of the 24-page limit, he had left a lot of stuff out, and that’s why he decided to make a full graphic novel. After becoming a more skilled artist by making his graphic novel Punk Rock & Trailer Parks and doing extensive research – talking to dozens of former classmates and teachers, reading FBI and police files and interviews with Dahmer – he started on My Friend Dahmer.
I found the book to be very fascinating. How often do we get to know a serial killer up-close through the eyes and memories of one of his classmates? There is an interesting tension between the complex and nuanced way Backderf tells his story and his somewhat crude and cartoon-style drawings. Backderf style works somewhat as a comic relief and at the same time points out that what we get here is his side of the story, his vision on Dahmer’s youth.
Derf Backderf
Interestingly Backderf doesn’t show any of the murders. Maybe that’s because he didn’t want to please those readers with a morbid curiosity. But maybe part of the reason is that Backderf could never see his odd high school friend as the killing monster capable of such atrocities.
Personal appearance of Backderf in ABC It’s a question I like to ask the comic book artist, and on Sunday the 15th I will. Derf Backderf will be making a personal appearance at the American Book Center in Amsterdam that day at 15.00 hours, where I am going to interview him. The audience can ask questions as well. I hope to see you there.
I read Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Seconds in one session. I couldn’t stop reading this wonderful, feel-good science fiction story by the Canadian cartoonist/musician who is famous for creating Scott Pilgrim.
The main character of the 300-plus graphic novel is Katie, a talented young chef who runs a successful restaurant called Seconds. She’s respected by her peers and in the process of opening a second restaurant that will be her own. Life looks good, but then it doesn’t anymore: her ex-boyfriend pops up, her fling with another chef goes bad, and then her best waitress Hazel gets badly burned during work. Katie needs to change things, but we can’t change the past, or can we?
When a mysterious girl appears in the middle of the night, it seems Katie gets a chance to change one of her mistakes and turn her life around for the better. She only has to write down what she did wrong, ingest a magic mushroom and go to sleep. And when she wakes up, she has indeed changed the past. But for Katie, life still doesn’t seem perfect, so she goes against the rules and changes the past a second time. And a third, and a fourth, etc. But she soon discovers that going against the rules has dire consequences.
With Seconds, O’Malley taps into a desire most of us have, since we’ve all made mistakes we’d like to change or erase from our past. Obviously Katie will abuse the gift she got to change more and more details about her life, going further back into the past to fix things until she understands the valuable life lesson that we all have to accept our mistakes, learn from them and live with them. Although the plot is somewhat predictable, I really enjoyed its execution. Especially when the fairytale-like elements turn dark and the story becomes rather nightmarish.
Just like his famous comic series about Scott Pilgrim, O’Malley draws most of his characters in a cartoony, manga-esque style. So be ready for girls with big hair, large eyes and expressive faces. Manga-style artwork is an acquired taste; I guess it’s either your thing or it isn’t.
Art-wise O’Malley had assistance from Jason Fischer, a cartoonist from LA. Unfortunately the credits list doesn’t state in what way Fischer assisted, whether he inked the drawings or was responsible for the decors, for instance. What I really liked about the art of this comic are some of the big panels in which the artists treat the reader to a wonderfully detailed drawing of the scenery, like these two:
Also, Nathan Fairbairn did a wonderful job coloring the book. I will definitely read Seconds a second time.
Iron: Or The War After is a graphic novel by Shane-Michael Vidaurri. It’s an espionage thriller with a poetic quality, taking place in an anthropomorphic world.
That’s right: the characters are animals like bears, frogs, rabbits and goats. All walking on two legs, of course. Their natures represent human kind with all its complexity and nuances.
When the rabbit Hardin, an intelligence spy from the Resistance, steals information from a military base of the Regime, his actions set off a chain of events that reverberates through the ranks of both sides, touching everyone from the highest ranking officials to his own son, who desperately wants to follow in his father’s footsteps. Who the hero or the villain is depends on which side you are on, really. A high-ranking officer like tiger Captain Calvin Engel could at the end of the story be considered a traitor to the establishment.
Iron: Or The War After is Vidaurri’s first book as an author and artist. He has worked as a colourist and cover artist for publishers like Dark Horse, Image and Archaia. He also wrote and illustrated the first issue of Jim Henson’s The Storyteller: Witches.
The poetry is in Vidaurri’s wonderful art. The New Jersey born artist makes aquarelles with a monochromatic colour scheme. To tell his story about war and betrayal, Vidaurri uses earthly and cold colours like blues and greys to capture the cold of winter, occasionally placing a big splash of bright red in the form of a red cardinal or blood spatter. The visuals make reading this graphic novel a real treat and the interesting page layouts add a stilled quality to the book. The story has a tight plot, yet the visuals leave a lot of room for the reader’s interpretation.
Before we get down to the nitty gritty of The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, lets enjoy this video by My Chemical Romance first:
I hope you like the song and video, because the song, and the album that it is on, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys are actually the prequel to the comic, written by Shaun Simonand Gerard Way, who is the lead vocalist of My Chemical Romance and comic book writer of interesting stuff like The Umbrella Academy.
(Fun fact: comic book author Grant Morrisonalso makes an appearance in the music video. He’s the bald bad guy killing the Killjoys.)
The comic picks the story up a decade later. You see, the Killjoys were a team of revolutionaries who lost their lives while saving a mysterious young girl from the tyrannical mega corporation Better Living Industries. Today the Killjoys live on in memory, as BLI widens its reach and freedom fades. The girl is now grown up and in her late teens. A new group of revolutionaries, who live in the desert and get their inspiration from the original Killjoys, think the Girl is their saviour. It’s a role she doesn’t know anything about, but when the story unfolds she will play a pivotal role in the revolution against oppression. The group of outlaws consists of a bunch of narcissistic teens that seemed to be worried more about their hair looking good than the victims they shoot. As characters, these outlaws aren’t very interesting, and as a reader I didn’t care that much about their fate.
The trade paperback The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoyscollects all the six chapters of the story. Not knowing beforehand the comic was a sequel to a record, I felt kind of lost in the first two chapters, getting to know this Strange New World of Way and Simon, but I got into the groove of the story soon enough and especially enjoyed Becky Cloonan’s energetic art work. Cloonan seems to take some visual cues from manga comics even though she uses the grammar of American comic books.
Basically, there are three storylines that unfold simultaneously. The first storyline concerns the Girl coming of age and finding her destiny. The second storyline is about Korse, the Scarecrow that originally killed the Killjoys (Grant Morrison in the video). He’s a homosexual who has a secret relationship that gets discovered by his BLI employees. For Korse there is no alternative than to go head-to-head with the head of the company. The third story arc is about two porno droids trying to escape Battery City. I found their journey to be the most compelling. Interestingly, it is the droids that show the most human emotions.
Stories such as these always call to mind outstanding literary narratives such as Brave New Worldby Aldous Huxley and 1984 by George Orwell. To me, Killjoys is just another modern-day, blockbuster variation on the dystopian future as depicted in these aforementioned classic novels. The BLI corporation on the surface seems like another version of Big Brother as it runs Battery City, in which regular citizens are like enslaved consumers, living in fear for breaking the law set by BLI. Draculoids and Scarecrows enforce this law. They are scrupulous and scary employees of BLI who wear white masks and heavy artillery. In Battery City everything seems easy and secure. People can erase their emotions through tablets and get off with porn droids. As BLI considers emotion to be a weakness, whoever steps out of line gets neutralised.
It’s not hard to recognize in BLI’s wish to strip citizens of their individuality and making them into mindless consumers, a nod towards the way the Western world is heading today, which makes this futuristic story quite relevant. Nowadays, big corporations seem to be more powerful than governments. Citizens are brought up to be compliant consumers. With our everlasting addiction to our smart phones, apps, the web and other consumer products, it seems that the vision of the citizen-as-robot the comic book makers present us doesn’t seem to be too far off reality as it is.
Having said that, even though the art work looks good and on the whole The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys is an enjoyable read, because it plays with familiar dystopian tropes I did feel like I’ve read this story already, many times before.
Have you always wondered what sort of world is hidden behind the counter of your favourite bistro, bar or restaurant? Well, if you read Over Easy by Mimi Pond you’ll get a very entertaining and revealing look in the world of waiting.
Frankly I couldn’t wait tables if my life depended on it. I am simply too clumsy to be a waiter. Thankfully, Margaret Pond isn’t. When she is denied financial aid to cover her last year of art school, Margaret gets a job as a dishwasher in the Imperial Café and soon becomes a waitress.
Over Easyis Mimi Pond’s freewheeling graphic memoir about her life and times at Mama’s Royal Café in Oakland, California, in the late seventies. An era in which the sensitivities of the hippie movement faded away and were replaced by Punk’s angry outlook on life. It’s also the era in which the staff of the Imperial Cafe, besides having a coffee and a fag, take a recreational sniff of coke on their lunch breaks.
On the menu we have an interesting collection of colourful characters, Margaret’s colleagues. There is the friendly Lazlo Merengue who runs the place – if you apply for a job and tell a joke he likes, you are hired. There is Sammy the cook and wanna-be poet, who marries one of the waitresses on a whim while they’re spending a drunk weekend in Reno. And then there are the lovely waitresses, each with their own outspoken personality. They all imagine themselves to be the stars of the little dramatic theatre that is the Imperial Café. All the regulars and the staff have pseudonyms and Margaret is christened Madge.
The book is filled with well-written observations, and I especially liked the way Mimi portrayed the characters. Her voice-over is very witty and light of tone. For instance, this is how she describes Helen, one of the waitresses: ‘Helen is tall, and without being what you’d call classically beautiful, manages to pull off this punk Lauren Bacall thing that drives men wild. She has deadpan delivery, and she hardly ever smiles. But when she does, all men become her slaves. And if you make her laugh, well, the clouds part, the sun comes out, life looks great again. I am determined to learn her secrets.’
The Imperial Café community seems to be as without direction as the plot of the book, which moves along at a slow, free-wheeling pace. The story climaxes at a poetry night on Halloween, if one could call it a climax. Actually the book is pretty much open-ended and on the last page the story seems to be far from finished. Let’s hope Pond will have a sequel finished soon.
Maandag 1 september 2014 woon ik precies vijf jaar samen met Linda. Dat betekent dat ik ook vijf jaar in Amsterdam woon.
Amsterdam kan soms prachtig zijn. De grachten in het centrum zijn zeer pittoresk en ik geniet altijd van de prachtige zestiende en zeventiende-eeuwse panden langs het water. Voor een journalist gespecialiseerd in strips is het handig om in Mokum te wonen. Er zijn een paar goede stripwinkels hier en veel Nederlandse stripmakers wonen in de stad. Daarbij is in Amsterdam op cultureel gebied altijd wat te doen. Zoveel zelfs dat het vaak moeilijk een keuze maken is en ik de avond op de bank thuis met een boek doorbreng. Maar als je iets wilt doen, is dat vaak om de hoek.
Amsterdam is sowieso een fijne stad om doorheen te lopen. Goed, het centrum is in de zomer na 11 uur overgenomen door toeristen, maar wie de stille straatjes kent of buiten het centrum blijft, kan goed te voet door de straten lopen. Uiteraard zijn er genoeg problemen in de hoofdstad te noemen, maar dat doe ik nu even niet.
Het Westerpark
Mijn favoriete hangplekken in Amsterdam van de afgelopen vijf jaar zijn:
De Balie: perfect om met mensen af te spreken, want centraal en er is (bijna) altijd plek. En ze hebben lekkere croissants.
De Bekeerde Suster: Beste hamburgers in town. En die frieten… Hmmmmm!
Het Westerpark en het Westergasfabriekterrein: Tegenover mijn huis. Perfect om rond te wandelen en de drukte van de stad achter je te laten. En, heel veel gezellige konijntjes. Voorheen woonden we vlakbij het Vondelpark. Daar kwam ik vroeger graag, maar eigenlijk heeft nu het Westerpark mijn voorkeur. Want, minder toeristen, dus minder druk. Nu moeten ze alleen die vaste groep zwervers nog ergens anders plaatsen en dan is het park perfect. Ook kom ik graag in het Ketelhuis voor een goede koffie verkeerd.
The American Book Center: Prima winkel voor wie van heel veel boeken houdt en een heel goede stripafdeling vol met comics. Wil je de belangrijkste Batman-comics kopen? Aan Spider-Man beginnen of klassieke graphic novels? Die vind je hier.
Eye: Zo’n beetje alle belangrijke filmfestivals in Amsterdam worden hier gehouden. Voor KLIK! en Imagine kom ik er dus. En vaak ook tussendoor, want als filmwetenschapper voel ik me in het Filmmuseum thuis.
Stripwinkel Lambiek: Bijna alle striphappenings zijn hier en de koffie staat altijd voor je klaar. Al kom ik ook graag in Het Beeldverhaal.
Dit zijn zo uit mijn hoofd, mijn favoriete plekken in Amsterdam. Wat zijn die van jou in Amsterdam of je eigen woonplaats?
Rocky Raccoon and Groot drawn in the expressive Mignola style.
With the movie The Guardians of the Galaxy hitting theaters in the Netherlands on August 14th, this summer there is no way around the little feisty Rocket Raccoon and his buddy Groot, so you might as well pick up this collection of stories to get yourself acquainted with their back stories and adventures. You will be in for some fun and loony adventures.
Rocky Raccoon and Groot drawn in the expressive Mignola style.
After reading the Rocket Raccoon and Groot trade paperback, I can’t help wondering what writer Bill Mantlo and artist Keith Giffen were smoking when they conjured up the character. No doubt they were listening to The White Album by The Beatles, because the first real story in which Raccoon plays an important part, which happens to be an adventure with the Incredible Hulk, is full of references to the song ‘Rocky Raccoon’.
Rocket Raccoon is an intelligent, anthropomorphic raccoon, an expert marksman, master tactician and pilot. He’s also an inhabitant of a planet called Halfworld. Half of this planet consists of an insane asylum called Cuckoo’s Nest, which looks as cosy as the garden of Eden, while the other half is an industrial wasteland where robots are producing toys to keep the insane entertained and happy. It’s Rocket’s task to protect the inmates from killer clowns and the Black Bunny Brigade, and guard the loonies’ ‘Gideon’s Bible’, which contains everything one needs to know about the history of the planet – if only one would be able to decipher its text.
If this sounds a bit corny or loony, you’re quite right. Strangely enough I never had trouble believing stories about a guy bitten by a radioactive spider, nor about a Bat-Man guarding a major metropolis. However, it took me quite some pages to get into the groove of the nonsensical world of talking animals, with the likes of Rocket Raccoon and his side-kick Wal Rus, who has mechanical tusks that can blow your head off.
However, things start to get quite serious in the four-issue limited series by writer Bill Mantlo which is also a part of this trade paperback, when the two major toy providers, a mole and a big snake, start a trade war with one another. When Rocket’s girlfriend, a lovely beaver named Lylla, gets kidnapped in the process, it is up to him and his team to free her. They’ll change the fate of Halfworld in the process.
The fact that a young Mike Mignola, who later became famous for creating a certain character called Hellboy, drew these four issues of Rocket Raccoon made the story that more interesting to me, especially since you can clearly see Mignola still trying to find his typical expressionistic style. (The cover of the book is, however, drawn in that lovely Mignola style we all love so much; see picture above right.)
Oh yeah, even though Groot is not as important a character as the title of the book might make him appear, let me tell you a bit about him. Groot (also known as the Monarch of Planet X) was created by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Dick Ayers. The character first appeared in Tales to Astonish #13 (November 1960), which is also contained within this trade. He’s an extraterrestrial, sentient, tree-like creature that originally appeared as an invader who intended to capture humans for experimentation. Later on, he was reconfigured to be a heroic noble being, and crossed paths with Raccoon.
Nowadays Rocket Raccoon and Groot are members of the Guardians of the Galaxy, and will star in the summer blockbuster by the same name. In the four part story ‘Annihilators’ Raccoon and Groot take centre stage. Personally I enjoyed this adventure written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning and drawn by Timothy Green II, the best. The story starts with the Guardians of the Galaxy disbanded, and Rocket working as a mailboy at the offices of Timely Inc. (Note that Marvel Comics used to be called Timely Comics.) He doesn’t remember a lot about his past, but when Rocket is attacked by a killer clown, it is time to visit his old buddy Groot once more and travel back to Halfworld to discover why Rocket had to leave his place of birth in the first place. It is a fun read, event though this adventure sort of rewrites the events of the four-part story of Mantlo and Mignola that came before.
I loved certain running gags in ‘Annihilators’. For instance, to the untrained ear Groot’s vocabulary seems quite limited, for all he seems to yell is ‘I am Groot!’, but that’s just because you and I don’t speak tree. Rocket does, however, and luckily for us his responses to Groot make clear what his wooden ally is talking about during the comic.
Once upon a time Doctor Stephen Strange was a brilliant surgeon and an arrogant man-of-the world seduced by material wealth. One fateful day, a tragic car accident deprived him of his surgical skills. After hearing rumours of the mystical Ancient One, Strange went to the East to ask this mystical master to cure his hands. The Ancient One refused and instead offered to teach Strange in mysticism. Stephen Strange became the Ancient One’s student and later the Sorcerer Supreme – earth’s first line of defence against magical menace.
I know, all of the above sounds a bit corny. Frankly, until recently I wouldn’t call myself a Doctor Strange-fan. Since Strange is one of the residents of the Marvel Universe, he frequently guess-starred in comics I read, be it Amazing Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four or Avengers. However, the fair Doctor did make an impression in those stories, and maybe that’s why I picked up a big pile of Doctor Strange-comics when I came across them in a sale at a local comic book store last year. After reading a couple of these comics from the late eighties, early nineties, written by Roy and Dann Thomas, I was hooked on the wonderful mystical world in which Strange operates. I also grew fond of his interesting and weird supporting cast: his apprentice is a green alien bull and his brother a vampire, to name just two oddities that stand out. Also it seems that the mage has become quite a nice guy and seems a total different person from the selfish surgeon he once was.
Currently the good doctor doesn’t have a series of his own, but every once in a while Marvel Comics publishes a limited series, like The Oath: a five-part story that got collected in one volume in 2013. The Oath is written by Brian K. Vaughan, best known for intelligent and entertaining series like Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina and Saga. The artwork is by Marcos Martín, who uses a wonderful personal style that looks a bit retro while still feeling contemporary.
In The Oath, Doctor Strange’s servant Wong is suffering from a brain tumor. Medical science may be unable to treat it, but the master of the mystique knows of an elixir, which is kept in a deadly dimension, that might cure his good friend. After fighting a monstrous entity that guards the elixir and returning home, they soon discover that there is more to this elixir than meets the eye. When a burglar is hired by a big pharmaceutical company to steal it from Strange’s house, the Sorcerer Supreme gets shot during the robbery.
Vaughan treats the reader to an interesting and fast-paced story that has a couple of unexpected twists and turns, and ties Doctor Strange’s past to current affairs. He also manages to put forward an ethical dilemma within the relatively limited confines of the superhero comic book, which makes it even more interesting.
Two things bothered me a little bit, though: knowing Strange from the stories by Roy Thomas, Vaughan’s characterisation of Strange seems a bit off when he lets the doctor curse and swear. I am not against swearing in general and in the past I have heard the mage exclaim stuff like: ‘By the hoary hosts of hoggoth!’. But hearing mundane curse words coming out of the mouth of Stephen Strange seems a bit out of character. Another thing that bothered me is this: in the past there were stories in which Strange’s hands were cured and he could operate again. In The Oath the fact that Stephen’s nerve endings aren’t fixed is an important part of the story. This could be an error in continuity, but since it is not clearly stated when The Oath takes place within Doctor Strange’s history and it therefore could be a tale from the early days before his hands got fixed, I am willing to turn a blind eye.
Since I probably sounded like a total continuity nerd just now, I will stop rambling, and leave you with the recommendation that The Oath is a pretty good start if you want to get to know the wonderfully groovy world of Doctor Strange.
This review was published on the wonderful blog of the American Book Center.
Because I love Halloween – it’s my favorite holiday by far – I’m always on the lookout for Halloweenesque comics and stories. Wraith: Welcome to Christmasland by Joe Hill and Charles Paul Wilson III fits the bill nicely. I loved this very dark tale about ageless madman Charlie Manx driving around in his a vintage 1938 Rolls Royce Wraith, taking sinners to Christmasland. The car runs on human souls instead of gasoline. How’s that for alternative fuel.
Christmasland is a magical place where it always seems to be snowing and where you don’t have to wait in line for the rides. Children never get old, but have the nasty demonic tendency to kill people with scissors or just take a bite out of them with their very sharp and big teeth.
