Supernatural Law - now on Kickstarter!

I've become a fan of Batton Lash's series Supernatural Law, which has been running in print for decades now but most recently as an internet series. If you're not familiar with the concept, it involves lawyers Wolff & Byrd who serve in cases which involve the supernatural. Stories are usually inspired by real life legal cases or social issues; it doesn't just feature flamboyant courtroom drama, but also delves into small civil cases. What all stories have in common is the presence of the supernatural and Lash's outrageous sense of humour.

Lash is preparing a new print collection of Supernatural Law and has taken to Kickstarter to fund it. Go donate to his Kickstarter now and you'll find there are some great incentives, including being drawn as a character in his story! If you've never sampled Supernatural Law before, I think this is the perfect opportunity - why not donate a little something to the new collection and be rewarded with something from the Supernatural Law library while you're at it?

Great Moments in Newspaper Copy

Boy, just imagine the headlines after Harry Osborn says something! I can see it now: "Harry Osborn Has Said Something." Print journalism ain't dead, brother!

(Taken from Amazing Spider-Man Presents: American Son#3 by Brian Reed & Philipe Briones)

Review: Terry & the Pirates Volume 2

Milton Caniff is so highly regarded to this day for his detailed backgrounds, gorgeous women, freewheeling plots and exotic characters that I felt compelled to try the first volume of his Terry and the Pirates comic strips published by IDW. However, while the tome was somewhat rewarding, I did find it a bit of a chore to read at times as the characters often seemed to be stuck spinning their wheels for days and weeks. With some trepidation, I finally purchased volume two after about 18 months of deliberation and discovered I was now becoming a Terry and the Pirates fanatic!

It helps that Caniff's style was evolving as he produced the strip, so by the second volume the characters' features have become stabilized, yet more expressive and the backgrounds have become more frequent (as opposed to omitted) and lush. Further, having introduced so many characters at the start of the strip, the episodes reprinted here (from 1937-1938) have the advantage of playing with the people, personalities and relationships already introduced, with only a few notable additions to the series.

Terry and the Pirates, for those who don't know, began in the 1930s under Milton Caniff's auspices and most people talk of the series "ending" in 1946 when Caniff departed (even though it continued under other hands). The series concerns youngster Terry Lee and his adventures around then-contemporary China, matches wits with pirates such as the Dragon Lady; however, Terry is usually playing second fiddle to his grown-up pal Pat Ryan. Comedy relief is supplied by Connie, Pat & Terry's undeniably-racist servant.

If I could pick just one word to sum up volume two it would be "Burma." Introduced in the first volume, Burma is a scheming thief who'd earlier been a foil for Pat & Terry (and a romantic interest for Pat because all available women in the strip are a romantic interest for Pat). Burma returns in this volume when her former ally Captain Judas tries to get revenge on her, Pat, Terry & Connie. Eventually, this leads to a lengthy sequence where Pat is left behind in Hong Kong while Terry, Burma & Connie become the stars of the strip (Pat is gone for 7 months!). Terry and Burma clash with the raider Klang, form an alliance with the Dragon Lady, rescue a child from a bombed-out train and square off against Hunter Yurk, an American who's collaborating with the invading Japanese; it's only then that Pat rejoins the strip. Amidst all of this, Terry develops a crush on Burma. Although Burma laughs him off, Terry matures into a capable hero during the 7 months without Pat and for the first time seems to be the protagonist of the strip which bears his name, rather than Pat. Terry's devotion to Burma eventually leads to him assisting her in evading the law, ignoring Burma's observation that he's needlessly imperiling himself by helping her.

It's interesting to see the nobility of Burma in this volume. For much of the strip Burma's alliance with Terry could have simply been formed of convenience, needing his help first to escape Captain Judas, then to survive while stranded in rural China. However, when the Dragon Lady re-enters the strip, forming an alliance with Terry against Klang, Burma's interaction with the Dragon Lady exposes Burma's character; the Dragon Lady eventually betrays Terry to Klang to save her own skin, but Burma remains a faithful ally to the finish. Later, Burma is the one whose actions set Terry & Pat free and when she learns Nastalthia (the child she and Terry saved)'s father is being targeted by his fortune-hunting sister-in-law Drusilla. Burma attempts to romance him just to protect he and his daughter from Drusilla.

This is also the volume which introduces Big Stoop, who becomes the series' fourth Musketeer (personally, I'd rather have Burma in the cast on a permanent basis). Big Stoop joins Connie as the series' heroic Chinese characters, but Big Stoop isn't the same caricature as Connie. It's certainly odd that while Caniff's style grew increasingly realistic, Connie became increasingly unrealistic over time as the size of his ears and length of his teeth expanded, making him a cartoon character living in a world of normal people. Big Stoop, on the other hand, was mute (meaning no offensive dialogue) and a towering colossus, easily over 7'. Stoop's prodigious strength is a great addition to the cast - I'm fairly amused at the above panel where he throws a man so hard his body ricochets - so that instead of Pat being the only one capable in a fight, there are two decent brawlers in the group (for that matter, Terry is more effective in a fight now).

Stories in Terry and the Pirates usually involve the characters running into a villain who holds them hostage for a few months. Therefore, I was all too pleased to find a bit of shake-up during one of the storylines in this book. Normandie Drake, Pat's beloved from the previous volume, returns in a series of strips where Pat learns she's married (and later still, pregnant) to an absolute louse, Tony Sandhurst. Sandhurst provides a different sort of menace to the series as his villainy is derived from his cowardice and spite. He refuses supplies to his men because he's heard them complaining about him; the later lack of supplies causes a major crisis when hill folk arrive seeking food; when the whites refuse to share what little they have, the hill folk launch an all-out raid. Even after this, Sandhurst continues to bedevil the heroes by trying to have Pat found guilty of inciting the assault. Because of Pat's devotion to Normandie, he can't quite bring himself to treat Sandhurst how he ought to, so he manages to escape the sort of punishment Caniff's villains normally receive.

It's also interesting to see Caniff acknowledge the invasion of China by Japan, something his editors weren't too keen about (which is why the Japanese are simply "invaders"). In particular, it gives the Dragon Lady a great opportunity to wrap herself in the flag (so to speak), declaring herself a patriot so she can absorb more people into her camp, declaring they'll drive the invaders out of China together; the Dragon Lady genuinely dislikes the Japanese, but as usual she's motivated by her own self-preservation, not concern for anyone else.

I think the weakest point in this volume comes during the Captain Judas story, just after he's kidnapped Pat, Terry & Connie. Big Stoop remains at large, carrying Pat's fraternity pin through Hong Kong. By chance, one of Pat's friends sees the pin, recognizes it as his own fraternity and brings Big Stoop to the police, just as a message Pat smuggled out of Judas' prison reaches the police station. After this, Pat's friend is unimportant. What was the point of this sequence? It's an awfully big coincidence that Big Stoop should just happen to meet one of Pat's friends in the streets of Hong Kong(!), but it becomes an unforgivable contrivance when the chance encounter isn't responsible for Pat's rescue (Pat gets word to the police on his own) and Pat's friend hasn't been introduced in order to set up a new plotline. Big Stoop might just as well have wandered into the police station on his own steam.

Terry and the Pirates has been collected into six volumes by IDW - and I don't think I'll wait 18 months before I buy volume 3!

Review: the Fixer and Other Stories

Although I've enjoyed Joe Sacco's long-form journalism works (Palestine, Safe Area Gorazde & Footnotes in Gaza), I resisted picking up the Fixer and Other Stories for quite some time, not realizing it comprised three journalism stories from 1997-2003 in the same mold as the aforementioned books.

"The Fixer" is the longest tale, relating how Sacco met Neven, a former soldier in Sarajevo who helped him get about the city in exchange for money. Much of the story involves the tales Neven would tell about what he'd done in the Cold War and in the Yugoslav Wars. Neven's stories are quite engaging, particularly one where he shoots a soldier, relaxes, then the enemy soldier turns out to have survived his first salvo and shoots Neven, knocking him down and forcing him to shoot his gun through its holster before the enemy can fire another round. They're great stories, but over time Sacco begins to wonder how much truth they contain. This is a great companion piece to Safe Area Gorazde, focusing more on the soldiers' lives than the civilians.

Also closely related to Safe Area Gorazde is "Soba," about Sacco's encounters with the titular character, a soldier who became a celebrity in Sarajevo as just about every visiting journalist would seek his commentary on the conflict. It's a short story, but gives space for Soba to elaborate on his activities during the war, his perilous work disarming landmines and his hard-partying lifestyle in Sarajevo.

The last - and least - is "Christmas With Karadzic," detailing how Sacco and two other journalists managed to briefly interview Radovan Karadzic some time before Karadzic was arrested for war crimes. However, it's not really about Karadzic, it's about the journalist trio doing the work to find Karadzic and sharing their reactions to their surroundings. The accompanying journalists' personalities are so strong it overwhelms the narrative about Karadzic - it's probably better suited to a collection around the theme of journalism rather than sitting alongside two pieces about the Yugoslav Wars.

Overall, this book was worth adding to my collection for the Fixer on its own; there's another Sacco collection coming out in a few months and I won't hesitate to pick it up this time!

Review: African-American Classics

Traditionally, Wednesday is the day of the week when new comic books are released and I usually visit a local shop evey Wednesday; if not Wednesday, later the same week; normally I don't miss going to the comic shop unless I'm on vacation. However, I didn't go to the shop today; I don't plan to go this week; I expect there will be a lot of weeks like that in the future.

However, I'm far from being done with comics! Let's talk African-American Classics!

I've read a couple of these Graphic Classics books put out by Eureka, but they used to be comprised of unfamiliar creators in black & white on regular paper; African-American Classics, however, features creators like Christoper Priest, Kyle Baker and Trevor Von Eeden in full colour on glossy paper! Like other volumes in the series, the stories and poems are adapted from the public domain, this time bound together by the theme of African-American authors. The contents are:

"The Reward" (adapted by Mac McGill), "Two Americans" (adapted by Alex Simmons & Trevor Von Eeden), "On Being Crazy" (adapted by Tom Pomplun & Kyle Baker), "The Negro" (adapted by Stan Shaw), "Danse Africaine" (adapted by Afua Richardson), "A Carnival Jangle" (adapted by Lance Tooks), "the Castaways" (adapted by Glenn Brewer), "America" (adapted by John Jennings), "Lawing and Jawing" (adapted by Tom Pomplun & Arie Monroe), "Lex Talionis" (adapted by Christopher Priest & Jim Webb), "Becky" (adapted by Mat Johnson & Randy DuBurke), "In the Matter of Two Men" (adapted by Kenjji), "Sympathy" (adapted by Lance Tooks), "We Wear the Mask" (adapted by Larry Poncho Brown), "Buyers of Dreams" (adapted by Tom Pomplun & Leilani Hickerson), "the Bronze Legacy" (adapted by Keith Mallett), "the Goophered Grapevine" (adapted by Alex Simmons & Shepherd Hendrix), "Sanctum 777 N.S.D.C.O.U. Meets Cleopatra" (adapted by Tom Pomplun & Kevin J. Taylor), "De Cunjah Man" (adapted by Masheka Wood), "Filling Station" (adapted by Tom Pomplun & Milton Knight), "the Ghost of Deacon Brown" (adapted by Jeremy Love), "Aunt Chloe's Politics" (adapted by Titus V. Thomas), "Shalmanezer" (adapted by Lance Tooks).

Outside of Langston Hughes, I wasn't familiar with any of the featured writers, so I was curious to see what kind of stories were included. Of the entire pack, four stories really stood out:

"Two Americans" is a tale by Florence Lewis Bentley, telling of an African-American soldier in World War I who's reunited with the man who lynched his brother while on the battlefield of France. It's a somber tale about overcoming hatred first within yourself before tackling it externally. When the lead character sees his brother's killer lying wounded on the battlefield he first intends to leave him there, but his dead brother appears in a vision, pleading with him to save his own killer. It's ultimately a variation on the parable of the Good Samaritan. Trevor Von Eeden's artwork is tremendous, aided by Adrian Johnson's colours it's full of hellish blurs of fighting, fiery flames and glowing spirits. I was so taken with Von Eeden's work that I went out and bought his book the Original Johnson after reading this anthology.

I find I'm rather hit and miss with Kyle Baker, but I absolutely adored W.E.B. De Bois' "On Being Crazy" and how Baker brought it to life. It's strange that a story about racism could be so amusing; the protagonist simply goes about expecting to be treated as an equal, then responding to racists who bar his path by making simple observations. I love his reaction to a woman at a concert asking him if he enjoys being where he's not wanted: "I certainly want the music, and I like to think the music wants me to listen to it." Or when a man crosses into mud because he opines all Negroes are dirty: "So is the mud. Moreover, I am not as dirty as you - yet."

I was very surprised by Robert W. Bagnall's "Lex Talionis;" I knew anything with Christopher Priest's name attached to it would be worthwhile, but this particular story is something of a mystery/weird horror story which could have run in Weird Tales or Black Mask back in the day. It concerns a brilliant African-American scientist who's been dogged by a rival white man since their university days. When the bigot murders the scientist's sister, the scientist enacts a bizarre and grisly revenge. It's fine to see Priest's name in comic books again, having sat out of the medium for most of the last 5 or 6 years.

This volume contains a couple of stories by Zora Neale Hurston; the author biography in the back of the book reveals she was rejected by some African-American audiences because of how she wrote dialect. Certainly one of the stories, "Lawing and Jawing," reads like an old Amos N' Andy script. However, I was surprised at how well I enjoyed the second story, "Filling Station," set at a gas station on the Alabama-Georgia line. The story really comes to life when two motorists begin to feud over whose state is better, beginning by accusing the other's state of having more racists, then winding up with a ridiculous Chevy vs. Ford debate as they brag about how fast their cars can go; this rivalry and oneupmanship was actually a lot of fun to read, so I see why Hurston had her fans.

Overall I really enjoyed the book and appreciate the standard author & adaptor biographes in the back of the book, but I really feel like some sort of editorial is needed for this volume. That is, what is the theory behind this collection? Did the editor simply have a list of stories he wanted to adapt, sought out the best talent he could assign and so forth? Were the creators given free reign to choose whichever stories they want to adapt? As a Priest fan, I certainly wonder if he dug up "Lex Talionis" on his own, or if the editors presented it to him.

Good ol' shoes

Today I bought a new pair of footwear, so my old shoes went to the dump. I'm not one to wax melancholy over a pair of old shoes - the laces were starting to fray, the exterior was showing some wear and tear and the soles of both shoes had split open. I walk a lot, usually for an hour minimum (30 minutes to work, 30 minutes from work) and the shoes I buy take a lot of punishment. This pair did their job and that should be all.

And yet... I regret losing these shoes because I couldn't replace them with a similar pair (the shoes previous to these were practically the same design). And I always felt a bit nostalgic when I looked at the scuff marks on the toe of the left shoe (above, right). I scuffed it up while jumping along the rocks at Tundavala last August; for all these months since then, those scuffs marks have been a visible reminder of Angola.

Ah well, I have new shoes now... and just enough time to break them in before I visit Sierra Leone!

Review: Inner Sanctum - Tales of Mystery, Horror & Suspense

Inner Sanctum Mysteries is one of the best-remembered programs of old-time radio and definitely the most easily recalled of the horror shows. Although the series had a few memorable episodes and occasionally featured stars like Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Richard Widmark and Agnes Moorhead, it's primarily renowned for the opening of the "creaking door" at the start of each program and the subsequent narration by the host, Raymond, whose dark comedy was usually in contrast to the content of the series.

I have no idea why, but earlier this year NBM publishing released the graphic novel Inner Sanctum: Tales of Mystery, Horror & Suspense by artist Ernie Colon.

This novel features seven tales of the supernatural: "Death of a Doll," "Alive in the Grave," "the Horla," "Mentalo," "the Undead," "Lived Once -- Buried Twice" and "the Voice on the Wire," together totalling 106 pages in black & white. Most of these were adapted from the radio series. In the book's back matter, Colon talks a bit about his career and how Inner Sanctum was a favourite program of his while growing up.

I'm not sure how people without a fondness for the radio program will approach Colon's Inner Sanctum, but as a fan of the series, I can say it's an odd duck. Colon primarily uses the adaptations as a launching point for him to indulge in whatever weirdness he likes to put on the page; for instance, "the Horla" (the famed Guy de Maupassant story, which was also adapted for Inner Sanctum) he depicts the creature haunting the protagonist, even though the point of the story is that the Horla is invisible; it worked just fine for radio, but comics being a visual medium, I suppose it makes sense to render the Horla; the original story makes the audience wonder if the protagonist is haunted or simply insane, so Colon's depiction of the creature seems to suggest what the protagonist imagines is haunting him.

On the other hand, "the Death of a Doll" begins as a fairly faithful take on the radio program, opening with a reporter about to meet the Devil, then flashes back to describe how he was led to the Devil after a drowned woman was found holding a baby doll; the baby doll seemed to pronounce the Devil's name. In the radio program, "the Devil" is just a normal man, but Colon takes some creative license and makes the antagonist "a" Devil who transforms into a giant monster. The odd thing is that his adaptation has the same opening - the reporter about to meet the man thinks is the Devil at a 3 o'clock rendezvous - but in the climax of the story, no such rendezvous is established.

Similarly, take "the Undead." This story was about an actor's wife who fears her husband is a vampire. In one scene from the original story, she finds a newspaper clipping in her husband's possessions with his obituary having been printed years earlier; in the radio show, she confronts her husband and he claims he clipped the article because he thought it was a funny coincidence that a dead man had the same name - in reality, he's trying to drive his wife insane by making her think he's a vampire; in Colon's version, the wife never confronts her husband about the article and instead the twist ending is that she's a vampire but doesn't know it while the husband wants her to make him a vampire too. In which case, why is the business about the newspaper article still in Colon's version with no explanation for why it exists?

Probably the best story in the volume is "Alive in the Grave," wherein a man pickpockets a newly-deceased man on the street, but later finds a card in the wallet explaining the man suffers from cataleptic spells and isn't dead; it's a oft-used gimmick in radio mystery shows from the era and Colon's spin on the tale is pretty good.

I haven't sampled any work by NBM before; this is a slim hardcover, standing 6x9". It's nice that Colon's name is in big letters on the front, but I'm little concerned at the pages in the back of the book promoting other titles in their catalogue - they only identify the creators in 1 out of 6 products.