"You can say it as loud as you like, Ollie. No one cares." The Stringbags review

I recently read The Stringbags by Garth Ennis and P. J. Holden, published by Dead Reckoning earlier this year. This graphic novel brought me a sudden realization: I have not been reading enough Garth Ennis war comics!

It seems virtually every publisher has published at least one of Ennis' war comics: Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Aftershock, Rebellion, TKO, Avatar, Dynamite, First Second, Titan... one can only wonder when Boom! or IDW will take the plunge. Dead Reckoning is a fairly new comics publisher working as an imprint for the Naval Institute Press. Many of their publication are centered around naval histories, but they branch out into almost anything in the military. The Stringbags is drawn from the history of the British Navy in World War II.

I had never heard of 'stringbags' before reading this book. As is helpfully explained (and demonstrated), the 'stringbags' were biplanes outfitted with torpedoes to combat enemy battleships. The Stringbags is divided into three chapters, each featuring a three-man 'stringbag' crew consisting of Archie, Ollie and Pops. They're fairly broad characters, but the stories aren't character-driven. I was surprised by how educational this book was -- Ennis frequently indulged in lengthy explanations of the actual battles and what their implications were. In the first chapter he depicts the battle of Taranto (previously unknown to me) and how it demonstrated aircraft carriers were superior to battleships. The second chapter depicts the legendary battle of the Bismarck while the third chapter depicts Operation Fuller, an unsuccessful British naval battle (but Ennis explains how the German victory was ultimately insubtantial).

I wasn't familiar with artist P. J. Holden prior to this book either. Even though I'm not well-versed in the details of military equipment, any artist tackling a realistic war comic has to be. Holden's art is full of details but it isn't mechanical -- the details don't interfere with the plot. It's really fine work, as beautiful as a war comic can be.

Whatever my word may be worth, I do highly recommend The Stringbags and I intend to read more of the Ennis war comics that I've missed.

"The whole thing still had to be fought out to the end." Dreaming Eagles #1 review

Some years ago I watched a film called The Tuskegee Airmen on TV; it was a pretty good movie on the subject of the African-American pilots of World War II. A few years ago, George Lucas released a film called Red Tails on the same subject, only to be critically panned. I recently decided to give Red Tails a chance on Netflix because some of the dialogue around the film called it "old-fashioned" or a "throwback to 1940s air war films." As I liked The Tuskegee Airmen a bit and have a lot of fondness for classic war films, I thought Red Tails might be to my liking. It was not.

If I could boil down Red Tails' problem to one word it would be: "believability." Take the 1940s aerial film Air Force by Howard Hawks. It's pure Hollywood corn (although with some good melodrama) but Hawks was fascinated by the planes and spent an immense amount of time on the details of how things worked. Red Tails didn't look back to classic Hollywood, but rather carried problems similar to its contemporary war films - unconvincing CGI, heroes have unlimited ammunition and (consequently) no sense of stakes or danger. Ultimately, I couldn't finish Red Tails; it's about as much like Air Force as Bay's Transformers are like Pinocchio.

Which brings me to Dreaming Eagles, a new series from Aftershock Comics, a company I haven't previously sampled from before. Selling their series on Comixology with a mere $1.99 for the first issue and a striking cover by Francesco Francavilla was enough to catch my eye. Once I saw the author of the series was Garth Ennis, the bargain was accepted. I don't connect to many of Ennis' comics but I do connect to his war narratives.

Dreaming Eagles has its feet in two time frames: the 1960s as a young African-American man is participating in the civil rights movement and the 1940s as his father serves in the air force. None of this seems like a natural topic for Ennis; he's not American, African or African-American, after all (which makes his use of the n-word a question of "n-word privileges," I suppose - comics fandom was not particularly impressed with the recent series Strange Fruit which tackled African-American issues through the viewpoint of a lily-white creative team). But so far as the first issue goes, Ennis seems to have a story worth reading.

The art by Simon Coleby tells the story in a straight forward fashion, capturing many mundane details. There's energy to be found in the book's sole action scene, a flashback where the pilot recalls watching a German he'd shot bail out of his plane.

Dreaming Eagles has potential and I'm curious to see what Ennis ultimately has to say. Even if he has nothing to say about race beyond the most facile observations I'm at least hoping for some solid thoughts on the hell of war, which he has delivered on in the past.

Dynamite's the Shadow#1

In the midst of my ongoing series Bitter Fruit, which chronicles the 1960s Archie Comics' version of the Shadow, a new series launched: Dynamite Entertainment's the Shadow, written by Garth Ennis and drawn by Aaron Campbell. Dynamite is famous for their covers, never publishing 2 when it could be 4, never 4 when it could be 8. Occasionally one hears about the interiors of their comics as well.

This comic book is set during the early stages of World War II, before the USA intervened. The Shadow is already waging war against Japanese & German agents on US soil and soon his alter ego Lamont Cranston is being approached by the US government for assistance.

There is one moment early in the Shadow#1 which I rather liked: having cornered a small gang of armed men hied by the Japanese. Although the Shadow kills copious amounts of men, he does demonstrate a small mercy: one gunman drops his weapon and the Shadow chooses to spare his life, allowing him to go free.

Where I take issue with this comic is - of all things - the colouring by Carlos Lopez. After the opening action scene, the rest of the comic book is talking heads (a typical 21st century super hero comic, in other words). Above you see Lamont in a club, greeting two representatives of the US government. Note Lamont's black hair, grayish-black suit and striped tie. Note the younger of the two g-men has red hair and a green suit.

After three and a half pages of conversation, Lamont gets up and leaves. Or does he? Check the colouring on panel four here; it's supposed to be the green-suited government man, but the colourist has become confused as to where the characters are in relation to each other, so he colours the g-men to look like Cranston. The g-man returns to his proper colours in panel 5.

Just to further your confusion about which character is which, on the following page, Lamont is suddenly wearing a hat which conceals his hair; also, his tie has lost its stripes. Again, welcome to comic books of the 21st century! They really have about as many errors as comics books of any other time. It's a pity the editors couldn't ask the colourist to get the characters' wardrobes fixed before sending it to the printers, nor ask the artist to do something about hat-wearing Lamont which makes him recognizable as the striped-tie wearing man of the previous page.