[Zacharie]

Title: Bullet to the Head (Click to go to the release post)
Writer(s): Matz (Click to see other books from this writer released on this site)
Review source: BlueStreak (Review 1) and blogspot (Review 2) (Don't click it, read the review here... )

" This comic is like a diamond in the rough."
Review: Bullet to the Head #1

Review 1 - This was an…interesting comic. First and foremost, I didn’t know a thing about this book before I read it. Didn’t read the solicits, didn’t know the writer, didn’t know the artist. All I knew was that it involved bullets and heads. And not necessarily in that order.

So, we have here a story of two assassins and the fallout that comes from their latest kill. A senator is dead and the police want to know why. It’s a simple story and a simple introduction all things considered and that’s not a bad thing. Matz does a great job of establishing the grittiness of his crime story by not lingering on any one scene. However, Matz’s writing has its flaws. Nothing stands out about his characters and too often do the speech bubbles clutter his scenes. While I enjoyed the grittiness, I found myself uncaptivated by the story itself.

Colin Wilson’s art compliments the story. His pencils are rough and unpolished, capturing the darkness of the plot. He also does a good job of making the crime itself seem…almost mundane. Many of his frames lack a focus point, giving the comic the feel of a Dirty Harry movie. However, for all of Wilson’s strengths as a penciller, he sucks as a letterer. Speech bubbles are in poor locations and are needlessly big and there’s the occasional typo.

This comic is like a diamond in the rough. There’s plenty to like about it, especially if you’re a fan of crime books. While it could benefit from better production quality, I feel like it would almost take away from the grittiness of the book. Good show.


Review 2 - Bullet to the Head presents itself as a hard-hitting crime noir thriller.

As most first issues do this one sets up the principal players and their motivations. This involves contract killers executing a politician and his possibly underage sex partner. Then in come the dogged cops to examine the crime scene and start putting clues together. And that's about it.

Colin Wilson's art is crisp and detailed with good facial expressions. Matz's dialogue is cool and specific to each character. The story is executed well with a steady pace. However...

I don't want to be overly critical but we've seen 'politician-getting-caught-doing-something-he-shouldn't-and-killed' scenario a hundred times before, which means that it needs to be presented in a really creative way to stand out. As well, the opening sequence where the contract killers exchange witty dialogue over the price of shoes come straight from 'Pulp Fiction' land. Put these two things together and we're starting to move into a place called 'derivative' which is a killer itself.

The straight crime comic isn't one I usually get in to but that didn't stop me liking Miller's Sin City or the Brian Michael Bendis' crime noir inflected Powers. If it's good, it's good.

No doubt further developments and twists will ensue in later issues but I'm not sure this issue does enough to warrant further monetary outlay. Who are we supposed to get involved with here? The witty killers or the weary cops?

This: Decent enough, but didn't really get me in. Forthcoming: Only if it looks really good.

More info:

Written by Matz
art and letters by Colin Wilson
Colors by Chris Blythe

Publisher:

[Zacharie]

Title: The Killer - Modus Vivendi (Click to go to the release post)
Writer(s): Matz (Click to see other books from this writer released on this site)
Review source: Troy Mayes (Don't click it, read the review here... )

" A compelling lead character, thrilling story and highly skilled artist make this a brilliant series to read."
Review:

Writer Matz and artist Luc Jacamon look to have another hit on their hands with the sci-fi series Cyclops, but before Archaia started translating that their hit series The Killer was already wowing audiences. If you haven’t been following The Killer then the Modus Vivendi hardcover collection is a great place to start.

In Modus Vivendi the Killer has been out of the game for four years, but all that inaction is starting to bug him so he takes a job. What at first seems like an easy bit of work turns out to have more twists and turns than the Killer ever could have imagined. Soon he’s working for people he doesn’t trust, doing things with big political ramifications and his own life is on the line, but hey at least he met a hot Cuban agent.

Matz’s plot reads like it’s been taken out of a high stakes espionage film, where the lead is a psychopathic assassin. There are a lot of players involved with shady goals and it’s a very smart and even sophisticated story dealing with tense political issues. At times there did seem like one too many participants in the plot and it was hard to keep track of who’s who and what they were doing, like the Quebec arc, but Matz manages to keep the story in control most of the time.


The Killer is a very captivating lead character for a psychopath, think of Dexter Morgan. Matz’s gives the Killer limited dialogue but a lot of thought bubbles. This gives the Killer a dual personality and subsequently a lot of depth as a character. His philosophical musings can get a little over the top when reading the whole 178 page book, but generally his thoughts on history, society and the human condition are worth the read. I particularly enjoyed any comments on historical events and the accompanying artistic portrayal by Jacamon as the ideas the Killer was presenting were very fleshed out and thought provoking. I also enjoyed the focus being on a bad guy. Not many comics will show the lead character killing a nun and not really caring or a security guard just because he doesn’t like the idea behind them. Matz does give the Killer a bit of humanity and vulnerability in the shape of his family. It gives him something to worry about and care about apart from himself and it helps the reader to go along with some of his actions as they are to help his family. Sometimes it does feel like a relief that the Killer doesn’t talk as some of the other characters do blather a bit but the friendship between the Killer and Mariano is a well developed one.

Jacamon’s art is impressive especially for a book like this. The generous use of bright and vibrant colors seems at odds with the dark nature of the book. Anyone else probably would have made the image dirtier and darker but Jacamon captures the life and vibrancy of South America in his artwork. Matz doesn’t have a lot of action in his script but when he does Jacamon certainly makes it pop with a liberal splashing of blood. Jacamon displays that the Killer is a cold assassin through the often lack of expression in his face while he’s killing, adding to the depth of the character. Occasionally you’ll experience some confusion between characters; the Killer is quite distinct but some other characters not so much. Also not a fault of Jacamon or Matz but in some of the speech the words run into each other making two words appear as one, I assume a problem with translating from French and trying to fit it in the existing bubbles.

If you’re looking to branch out from the typical superhero comics then The Killer Modus Vivendi hardcover collection is a good place to start. It displays the variety of the industry and the quality that can be found outside the big studios. A compelling lead character, thrilling story and highly skilled artist make this a brilliant series to read.

More info:

Written by: Matz
Illustrated by: Luc Jacamon

Publisher:

[Zacharie]

Title: The Killer (Le Tueur) (Click to go to the release post)
Writer(s): Matz (Click to see other books from this writer released on this site)
Review source: curledup (Don't click it, read the review here... )

" The story flows smoothly with a great pace to it."
Review:

The nameless protagonist of this story certainly embodies the name “The Killer.” As a hired and successful hitman, he stalks his prey with a meticulous professionalism usually reserved for accountants. As he waits an inexhaustible amount of time for his latest target to appear, he reflects upon how he had come to be the cold-blooded killer that he is. But the wait is getting the best of him, and he is quickly losing his edge.

Through this first arc, Matz introduces readers to the Killer as he comes to the end of one part of his life. Readers learn how the nameless assassin rose to power from a college student, and watch as he seeks our several marks within the first few issues. However, we also see that the killer is not solely one-dimensional, with hopes of getting out of the business to start a new life. Of course, things never go according to plan; now the killer must figure out if the person he has been chosen to kill next is actually supposed to kill him. The more important question is that if this assassin is after him, who sent him?


The story flows smoothly with a great pace to it. Luc Jacamon uses a good mix of large and small panels. The tint within flashbacks or night-time scenes adds an almost intimate setting to the story that also produces its own soundtrack. Though the art, Jacamon also projects the solitary life that the protagonist exists in. Though at times he is seen within the company of others, the protagonist still is singular in his purpose and viewpoint. The graphic novel acts as his journal and even justification of his life. The authors nonetheless inject ambiguities into the protagonist as someone who has choices but still returns to this way of life. The intensity of the execution scenes certainly speaks to the cold and removed nature of the protagonist. While some are less subtle than others, readers will feel the depths of rage brimming within the Killer.

Originally published in France in the late 1990s, the tale fits perfectly into the emerging crime genre that has revived itself over the last decade. It is a bit of a disappointment that no extras accompany this hardcover edition. Besides review quotes and a brief description, the book lacks the kind of materials that often justify hardcover prices. While glossy pages, a book jacket and the hardcover make it feel more authentic than your typical trade paperback graphic novel, the extras secure it a special place in many readers’ hearts.

An intriguing look into the live of an assassin, The Killer delivers a sober tale of the risk and solitude faced by the protagonist. While empathy may be hard to muster for such a cold being, Matz does manage to create a character that will strike the curiosity of readers to continue further with the story. This volume works as an introductory tale, providing readers with an origin story, the end goal (retirement by choice, not by death), and a new direction for the protagonist.

More info:

Written by: Matz
Illustrated by: Luc Jacamon

Publisher:

[Zacharie]

Title: Fell (Click to go to the release post)
Writer(s): Warren Ellis (Click to see other books from this writer released on this site)
Review source: Kayleigh (Don't click it, read the review here... )

" An incredible, dark and disturbingly humorous read... "
Review:

Synopsis (goodreads): Detective Richard Fell is transferred over the bridge from the big city to Snowtown, a feral district whose police investigations department numbers three and a half people (one detective has no legs). Dumped in this collapsing urban trashzone, Richard Fell is starting all over again. In a place where nothing seems to make any sense, Fell clings to the one thing he knows to be true: everybody's hiding something.

I picked this up the other day at my local comic shop but I've had it in my Amazon wishlist for quite awhile now. The combination of Ben Templesmith and Warren Ellis was simply too hard to resist when I could actually hold it in my hands, even if it did cost a little more than if I bought it online. (Although hooray for supporting indie book/comic stores!) This book was very different to the series I've previously read by Warren Ellis (Transmetropolitan and Freakangels). It is dark and oppressive and at first seemed devoid of that wicked wit I love so much in Ellis' work. The more I read it though the more that devilish humour came through and the more I really fell in love with this book.

Snowtown is the kind of town you hope could never exist. Only a bridge separates it from a city we'd probably all recognise but Snowtown seems to be from another time, or another world. Broken by rampant violence, crime and crippling poverty, Snowtown is empty of life, colour or hope and the vulnerable town people have reverted back to superstitions and magic for protection from the crime around them ("If Snowtown knows who you are, it won't come and get you")Detective Fell is new to Snowtown from across the bridge and seems immediately out of his depth in the wild and destructive world he finds himself in and the people that occupy it. His one saving grace seems to be an ability to recognise the secrets everyone tries to hide and a determination to unravel them and restore sanity and safety to it, one crime at a time.


The book is broken down into eight chapters, each chapter presents Fell with a new challenge, Snowtown style. Nothing, even crime, is simple in Snowtown and both the crimes and the criminals are complex and completely deranged, yet many have a sympathetic edge to them. Like in chapter 3 when a man driven mad by the grief of losing his brother attempts to bomb the second hand store that secretly sells guns, one of which was used to shoot his brother dead. Or the new guy in town who took to murdering pregnant women and hanging their fetuses from his ceiling because of an old superstition which thought they'd provide protection so you'd never have to be afraid again. Ultimately it's a bitter cycle, Snowtown breeds criminals who keep the regular townsfolk afraid until they snap and do something criminal themselves. It raises the age old question of nurture vs nature, is anyone in Snowtown born/raised evil or is the pervasive sense of doom and gloom that abounds Snowtown that drives them to such actions?

The illustrations* are incredible, they've almost got a life of their own. They perfectly capture the intense claustrophobia, darkness and insanity that pervades Snowtown and bathe the characters in this slightly unfocused unreal quality that matches the complete unnatural, inhuman feeling they all display page after page. It's almost like a bit of the evil or fear inside them seeps out and blurs their outlines, just as their actions blur the lines between right/wrong, sane/insane and good/bad. Ben Templesmith has an unbelievable talent for personifying all of this confusion and emotion in his work, and I don't think this comic would have worked with anyone else.

It's a short graphic novel, each chapter only being about 19 pages long, but the glimpses they provide into twisted and tormented people (both the criminals and residents of Snowtown alike) will live on long past those pages. All in all it was an incredible, dark and disturbingly humorous read and I'm eagerly awaiting the next book.

More info:

Written by: Warren Ellis
Illustrated by: Ben Templesmith

Publisher:

[Zacharie]

Title: Brodie’s Law (Click to go to the release post)
Writer(s): Alan Grant (Click to see other books from this writer released on this site)
Review source: E.C.McMullen Jr. (Don't click it, read the review here... )

" BRODIE'S LAW is a thriller like I've never seen in a comic before."
Review:

The story starts off with a man bleeding and dying, regretting that he didn't follow his own rules, which would have kept him out of this mess. The thing is, this is the guy telling the story and he doesn't tell you as a dead man.

This is Jack Brodie. He's dying. But he gets by, just barely, with a little help from his friends.

Whoever did Brodie up forgot to check him for a cell phone. With the barest push of a button, Brodie knows help is on the way: Then recovery, and then payback.

But for a guy like Jack Brodie, the line of payback is long and winding, and he may have brought it all on himself.

Brodie tried to rescue his wife, Marla, who left him to be a coke whore for a local, well-placed dealer. It's probably Brodie's fault that his wife no longer cares about him, their son, or even her own life. In fact, Brodie has a lot to account for, since he stole her love from his best friend.

Jack Brodie knows he's a lowlife, but lately, he hasn't been as proud of it. The only thing he has any pride in is his young son, Damien. And he's come to realize that having a father like Jack Brodie is causing his child damage. Damien is the only reason Brodie starts to care. Brodie wants to change. He wants everything to change for the better. He has no idea how, but he figures it starts with being a better Father, and somehow putting the family back together, which means retrieving the Mother. So Jack sets about putting his family back together the only way he knows how, by force.

But Marla belongs to Odessa the coke dealer, who is also a high ranking figure in the London underworld.


None of which even scratches the surface of Brodie's problems. Brodie's illicit occupation is as a thief for hire. A job that creates many enemies, and that kind of revenge debt is hard to shake off. What's more, Brodie's latest theft has exploded across the news of the city and even the country. Just as Jack was trying to get his life together with just one more job, it all blows up in his face and he becomes the number one wanted man in the entire country. Jack was hired to steal something from P-FACT Labs. He doesn't even know what it is. But the theft, the whole event, was a setup. And its big. It's planet size big. Now why in the world would someone, with resources worldwide, want to set up a minor lowlife like Brodie?

There lies the tale.

BRODIE'S LAW is a thriller like I've never seen in a comic before. This is what Quentin Tarantino and Roberto Rodriguez would make if they wanted to get hardcore.

Oh wait, they already did that with SIN CITY.

BRODIE'S LAW, then, is SIN CITY 2.0.

Now I'm not saying BRODIE'S LAW is better than Frank Miller's SIN CITY. I am saying that it's at least as good. And for some of us who've been looking for more tales and more variety and more thrills like Frank Miller's SIN CITY, Daley Osiyemi, Alan Grant, and David Bircham will certainly quench our thirst.

For me, I hadn't seen anything like SIN CITY since the early days of JUDGE DREDD. Frank Miller's THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and RONIN continued that tradition of hard core comic like no other. Miller's SIN CITY took it even farther. Now Alan Grant, creator of the original JUDGE DREDD, returns to raise the bar.

BRODIE'S LAW is futuristic, and twisted. It's the definition of terms like hard-boiled and two-fisted tales. If this is what you come to this site looking for, you've found it in BRODIE'S LAW.

And the best part? After this story, there are more!

More info:

Story: Daley Osiyemi
Story & Art: David Bircham
Writer: Alan Grant
Letterer: Debo
Cover Art: Simon Bisley

Publisher:

[Zacharie]

Title: The Book of Genesis (Click to go to the release post)
Writer(s): R. Crumb (Click to see other books from this writer released on this site)
Review source: Don Blankenship (Don't click it, read the review here... )

" This work is rather amazing. "
Review:

Having been a long time Crumb fan, and I will admit that in many ways, he is an acquired taste, I have wanted to read/own this particular work for some time now. A good Amazon friend, knowing my desire for this thing and knowing my almost legendary tightness with a dollar, and knowing I was having difficulties acquiring this through our local library service, had pity on me and gave me his copy. For that I am truly grateful. This friend most certainly knows what love of books and literature is all about...it is the sharing. My thanks!

Well, after I got my hands on this work and got over the shock of it not being what I expected, I have to say that I am absolutely delighted; delighted cover to cover and through four readings in the short time I have had the book in my hands. This work is rather amazing.

As has been noted, Crumb has fully illustrated the entire book of Genesis. From chapter 1 through 50, the man has not missed a word, nor might I add, has done any fiddling around with the text. I understand that it took the author, Crumb, over five years of very steady work to produce the book and the reader will merely have to glance through it to understand why. Each frame is meticulously drawn, each frame flows flawlessly into the next. I am not sure how many characters have been reproduced via drawing here, but each and every one of them is unique. This fact alone is rather astonishing.

Now before we go farther, it must be noted that the author has placed a tag on the front of the dust jacket which specifically states "Adult Supervision Recommended for Minors." This may or may not be advisable, depending upon your view, beliefs and attitude. I will say that the few scenes depicting nudity and "love making" are pretty mild by today's standards. I can well remember reading these "juicy" parts when I was a "minor," and I can assure you that my imagination was far, far more x-rated than anything Crumb came up with here. I also feel that of the many books in the Bible, this book, Genesis, should be first read with the young child, with or without adult supervision. There are just too many issues of violence, rape, murder, sex, incest, etc. to be dealt with and many of our young need some explanation; guidance to put everything into prospective.


I have had the pleasure of teaching bible classes over the last 40 years or so in the various churches we have attended over the years. My specialty has been the Old Testament. I would not have hesitated for a minute using this work as a supplemental text. As a matter of fact, looking back, I wish I had had access to it years ago.

There is something in this work for everyone. For those that that consider Genesis as a part of our Christian Mythology, and every major and minor religion in the world has one, then this work will fit right in. (I myself fall into this category). For those who are literalist, I find nothing in this work that should offend in the least. For diehard Crumb fans, the work is (from an artistic view), pure Crumb.

On the other hand....

There will be readers who will be disappointed. Some will fall into the camp of wanting Crumbs biting sarcasm to be present and not finding it. Those folks will indeed be disappointed. Some will be looking for a through trashing of the Bible. They will be disappointed. I can see, due to the "imagery" belief, where some Jewish folks may quite well be offended, not by the words certainly, but by the fact that God is indeed depicted.

Another aspect of this work which certainly should not be overlooked is the fact that it makes the reading or rereading of Genesis a true pleasure. As many times (and it has been many) that I have read this chapter, I was delighted in the new take and prospective this work gave to the old, old story.

More info:

Written by R. Crumb
Illustrated by Gustave Doré

Publisher:

Tome Press

[Zacharie]

Title: The Pro (Click to go to the release post)
Writer(s): Garth Ennis (Click to see other books from this writer released on this site)
Review source: Stephanie Cooke (Review 1) and Mike (Review 2) (Don't click it, read the review here... )

" definitely worth checking out at least once."
Review:

Review 1 - A higher power (literally) watches over the Earth and decides to make a bet with his companion that anyone has the potential to become a hero. To prove his point, he picks out a single mother who pays her bills through prostitution. She’s lewd, crude and downright miserable, but she one night after a particularly awful night on the streets, our hero awakens with superpowers. Not long after that, she is contact by the League of Honor (a spoof of the Justice League), which consists of The Saint (superman spoof), The Knight (Batman spoof), The Squire (Robin spoof), The Lady (Wonder Woman spoof), The Lime (Green Lantern spoof) and Speedo (Flash spoof). They ask her to join the team so that they can come together to fight the forces of evil.

Unfortunately for them, The Pro has a much different view on the world, since being a “Pro” requires a slightly different set of morals. Needless to say, the League of Honor has their hands full trying to teach The Pro the ropes and learning a thing or two about the world from a different perspective. All while fighting villains determined to destroy the world – villains with names like The Noun, The Verb and The Abverb… because all the other names were taken.

The Pro isn’t particularly awesome as a graphic novel. I don’t think I would read it again, but for a one time read, it was definitely enjoyable. Sometimes it makes you a bit uncomfortable to see what was going on, but the whole idea of a completely different perspective on the superhero world was interesting and refreshing. I know many people either loved this series or hated it, but I think I’ll just say that while I didn’t love it, I enjoyed it and I commend author Garth Ennis for taking a bold step towards pointing out the flaws behind the world of the superhero.

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW?
Nothing at all. Some history of the heroes being parodied might be necessary for maximum laughs, but really, it’s not mandatory to enjoy this graphic novel.

VERDICT
A bit raunchy, a bit WTF, but definitely worth checking out at least once.


Review 2 - Synopsis: A hooker is granted super powers. She's a struggling mom with an infant son and walks the streets at night to make ends meet. One morning she wakes up with powers and gets recruited into a super team uncannily similar to the Justice League.

They are shocked and appalled by her behavior during superhero fights and back at the lair. She calls them hypocrites for perpetuating inane superpowered battles while completely ignoring everyday problems in society.

Pros: Signature offensive comedy by Ennis, decent art by Conner, hilarious concept, some very funny situations, mild nudity and a superhero mystery solved - "What if Superman got head?"

Cons: She is not a good mother, some jokes are in very poor taste - be warned! Why is there a period at the end of The Pro.?

Mike Tells It Straight: Ennis crafts a superhero satire piece meant to offend and amuse in equal measures. Remimiscent of Hitman in terms of cartoony art, but mature sexual themes akin to Preacher. His lampooning of the JLA is particularly funny and this book is a quick laugh. You'll need a high tolerance for crude humor and it still may not be enough.

More info:

Amanda Conner; penciler, letterer, cover
Garth Ennis; writer
Jimmy Palmiotti; inker, cover
Paul Mounts (Bongotone); colorist

Publisher:

[Zacharie]

Title: Nancy in Hell (Click to go to the release post)
Writer(s): El Torres (Click to see other books from this writer released on this site)
Review source: Dean Stell (Don't click it, read the review here... )

" If you enjoy seeing a trashy/sexy biker lady kill demons with a chainsaw, you should check it out... "
Review: Nancy In Hell #1

The Story: Nancy is a trashy/sexy scream-queen who is trapped in Hell.

What’s Good: A lot if you don’t take things too seriously. If you’re a red-blooded male of our species, there are a lot of worse things than a sexy, scantily clad blond using a chainsaw to chop up the minions of hell. Nancy is also a strong, take-matters-into-her-own-hands character, so all is not lost on our female readers (I’ll come back to this below).

I’m always incredibly quick to hate on Marvel/DC when they put overt sexiness in their comics and sometimes that might come across as prudish, but it is really that I want that sort of comic material contained to a comic like Nancy in Hell. You can look at the cover for this and know what you’re going to get versus reading Thor and being surprised that the she-devils are planning to have an orgy with Mephisto (and then not being able to pass that comic onto a 8 year old boy). There is a time and place for all sorts of comics and Nancy in Hell is very appropriate for what it is.


Unlike many comics that have sexy women as their primary calling card, Nancy in Hell actually has a decent story to go with it. The story is basically that there is no division between heaven and hell…it’s all hell, but by being strong, your spirit can retain some of its sense of self in the hellish wastelands but it must continually fight off zombies, hellhounds and the like or suffer true death. But, just as I was thinking there is nothing but random, mind-less enemies to fight, a true villain and an unlikely ally show up that make me interested for the second issue.

What’s Not So Good: To start with, this is a comic that you couldn’t read in a public place. People will think you’re a pervert of some sort if you’re caught reading this on the train or an airplane. It is what it is… And why do strong female characters always come with little clothing? As I think I’ve noted above, I enjoy comics like this, but I’m also objective enough to realize that this sort of comic is perpetuating some stereotypes about comic fans.

Also, for as much as I like the art style that Ryp has with the ladies and monsters in this comic, when he finally draws a man on the final pages, the dude looks seriously weird. He’s almost androgynous. Maybe that’s intentional and it’ll come into the story later, but for now it looks weird.

Conclusion: This won’t win the Eisner award for best single issue, but if you enjoy seeing a trashy/sexy biker lady kill demons with a chainsaw, you should check it our for the art alone.

More info:

El Torres (writer)
Juan Jose Ryp (art)
Francis Gamboa (color)
Malaka Studios (letters)

Publisher:

[Zacharie]

Title: Poison Elves – The Mulehide Years (Click to go to the release post)
Writer(s): Drew Hayes (Click to see other books from this writer released on this site)
Review source: Clinton John Degase (Review 1) and David G. Gawlik (Review 2) (Don't click it, read the review here... )

" This is a must-have for fans of Drew Hayes' "Poison Elves" comic."
Review:

Review 1 - Uh...since I received a message to review this... Ok. This is a compilation of the first 4 volumes of Poison Elves. My wife actually had the other 4 separate (not in one collection), and the first volume had the re-done version, where Drew actually wrote out the details, like a book, instead of comic. While I loved that, I do think it's really cool to get a look at the comic-version originally shown. But, this book is a good deal for Poison Elves fans, and who could resist having 4 volumes crammed into one book? Plus, it's not too big. Not too much crammed in, but quite a lot, in a good way!


Review 2 - This is a must-have for fans of Drew Hayes' "Poison Elves" comic. This single volume collects the first 20 self-published issues of Drew's cult smash, and features reprints of the original "I, Lusiphur" #1 and #2. At about 480 pages, the book is a bargain, and I imagine would appeal to anyone interested in the (dark and violent) fantasy genre. This collection is an absolute godsend to all Johnny-come-lately PE fans, 'cause these issues just aren't out there anymore, and if they are, prepare to hand over your paycheck.

More info:

Written and illustrated by Drew Hayes

Publisher:

[Zacharie]

Title: From Hell (Click to go to the release post)
Writer(s): Alan Moore (Click to see other books from this writer released on this site)
Review source: Rebecca Scott (Don't click it, read the review here... )

" Superbly written and illustrated..."
Review:

". . . Hawksmoor, raising symbols, statuary from the Mind's Lost Continent, to set atop this church, St. Johns'. An obelisk to loom above the bridge, streets, and lives that teem therein. Above their minds, their dreams, six generations to its shadow born. THERE's magic . . . aye, and Poetry! As true as any Bard he spoke his soul, in syllables of stone reverberating down the centuries."

If you have not yet seen the movie based on this comic, and you think you might like to, I strongly suggest that you go and watch it before reading either this review or the book. Partially this is because, while the movie is entertaining on its own, it's a completely wretched adaptation of the book; but more importantly, the book takes a completely different approach to the story, and reveals in Chapter Three the name of the killer.

A second warning about this book: It is extremely graphic, far more so than the movie, not only in the details of the killings, but sexually as well. Intercourse is repeatedly depicted in scenes which, if filmed, could not be found outside of adult movies. This is a book for adults, a graphic novel in more than one sense. It is not for those who have weak stomachs.

Having issued my warnings, I now feel free to discuss From Hell in detail.

Unlike most Ripper fiction, From Hell is not a mystery novel, or at least, not in the standard sense of the phrase. Rather than being merely another story of someone either learning the Ripper's identity by mistake, or of baffled police investigators doing their best to track down Saucy Jack, this is the story of the murderer. It is based on the theory put forth in Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution by Stephen Knights, now a much-degraded book first published in 1977.

When Prince Albert Victor, known to friends as Prince Eddy, falls in love with a shop girl, impregnates her, and secretly marries her, he sets in motion the actions which will bring a reign of terror to Whitechapel. Annie Crook is taken to a madhouse, and her daughter Alice is left in the care of Mary, or Marie, Kelly, a Whitechapel prostitute. Threatened by a protection gang, Marie attempts to blackmail a friend of the royal family with what she knows, forcing Queen Victoria to take steps. Her Majesty calls in the Royal Physician in Extraordinary, Sir William Withey Gull, a respected surgeon and Mason, and instructs him to deal with the matter.

What Her Majesty does not know is that Dr. Gull has been having visions which will drive him to the man known to history as Jack the Ripper.


The facts of the case have been known for more than a hundred years. Unfortunately, they still don't form a coherent picture. People today are still speculating about the true identity of this serial killer. And something about him has caught our collective imagination. Countless books, fictional and factual, have been written about Jack, and references to him have turned up everywhere, including a classic Star Trek episode. He has become a mythic figure.

More often than not, fiction has attributed occult significance and powers to Jack, and this has been true since the days he stalked Whitechapel. Since Alan Moore is himself an occultist, it's hardly surprising that his Ripper is, too. What's unusual (though not surprising to anyone who's read much Moore) is the way he goes about it.

I said before that this was not a mystery novel in the standard sense, and this is accurate. We, the readers, see both the police's struggle to catch the criminal and the killer committing his murders. We know who the culprit is. We even know that he will not go to jail or be publicly executed for his crimes. But if we look at older meanings of the word, we find that it is, indeed, a novel about mystery. William Gull seeks, through his actions, to gain a spiritual knowledge which cannot be fully comprehended, to attain true communion with a mysterious Masonic deity. This dark mystery lies at the center of the plot, not the identity of the killer.

"What is the fourth dimension?" asks Moore, borrowing the words of C. Howard Hinton. Time, in From Hell, is cyclical, helical: events return again and again, mutating as they reoccur. Resonances spread through four-dimensional space, affecting other times and places than Whitechapel, autumn of 1888. If the mystery is central, then this notion of time is integral, the aether which permeates it.

The language runs from the erudite, flowing, and beautiful to the clipped, ignorant, and coarse. Fitting, since From Hell carries a theme of class division, so harsh in Victorian England.

The story is peppered with references, some easy to miss or misunderstand without a guide. A very young Aleister Crowley appears in these pages, as do W.B. Yeats and Oscar Wilde. A three-page scene set in Austria, with its little dialogue given only in German, is incomprehensible without a few key pieces of historical information. For those who know, the story is made richer by these things; for those who don't know, there are the marvelous appendices, about which, more later.

Eddie Campbell's black-and-white artwork, mostly ink drawing with a few charcoal panels for effect, brings a starkness to the story that strengthens it, reduces it to the essentials. He ably conveys the oppressiveness of Hawksmoor's churches, the liveliness of drinkers in pubs, and the despair in the faces of the Whitechapel prostitutes.

Everything about From Hell is extremely well-researched. Appendix 1 is forty-two pages of annotations in which Moore details, chapter by chapter and page by page, exactly where he got each piece of information, precisely what he made up, and what kinds of conclusions and conjectures can be drawn. He does so in a scholarly tone which can be dry, but is seasoned with wit and Moore's own frame of reference. It wouldn't be a bad idea to read the book once through for the story, and then to read it a second time, stopping to read the notes for each page. He also includes some information on visual references. Appendix 2 gives an illustrated history of Dr. Gull as an object of study in Ripperology. It's fascinating, funny, and strange.

The story of From Hell may chill you, disgust you, enthrall you, or appall you, but it is superbly written and illustrated, and is an amazing addition to Ripper fiction. Enjoy.

More info:

writer: Alan Moore
artist: Eddie Campbell

Publisher:

[Zacharie]

Title: Age of reptiles (Click to go to the release post)
Writer(s): Ricardo Delgado (Click to see other books from this writer released on this site)
Review source: Klarion (Don't click it, read the review here... )

" Truly unique comic book."
Review: Age of Reptiles: The Journey #1-#3

Last week I was browsing the shelves of my local shop and noticed the first three issues of a book I hadn't seen before: Age of Reptiles: The Journey. My first thought was, Hell, who doesn't love some dinosaurs? I picked them up on the strength of the back-cover endorsements and then read them all on Saturday afternoon, one after another.

My only regret is that I have to wait over a month for the fourth and final issue of this truly unique comic book.

The first thing that marks this comic as unique is that it is entirely wordless and it is serious. This is not some cutesy Land Before Time stuff where the dinosaurs talk or are self-aware or otherwise anthropomorphized. These are huge animals with instincts and packs and animal behaviors. They are predators and prey, and instead of sensationalizing them or using them as disposable bugaboos the creators choose to depict them as animals doing what animals do: hunting, traveling, tending to their needs.

That may sound odd or dull, but it is fascinating. The book does have a narrative structure - the reader observes a large number and variety of dinosaurs making what one assumes is a seasonal migration - and it most definitely has characters. I found myself rooting for the herbivores as they're tracked by a T-Rex and its two young. I found the T-Rex surprisingly (and somewhat sympathetically) opportunistic, that rarest of gifts: a villain with no malice. The action is tense, the tragedy wrenching and the comedy made me chuckle aloud.


The artwork is lovely, showing a wide variety of animals with varying appearances but nothing as crazy as the covers of some of the issues of Prehistoric Times featured in advertisements in the back of each issue of Age of Reptiles: The Journey. The dinosaurs are very much alive, breathing, running, hunting, young and old, but they still look like earthly creatures rather than some far-flung imaginary beasts. Instead the beauty and diversity of the artwork comes from the colors of the sky and land and water, reminding me more of a cable channel documentary than of a work of fiction. (As a tangent to the mention of the ads for Prehistoric Times, it's always interesting to me to see what advertisements are in a given book. The lack of cereal ads is a welcome absence.)

Most of all, though, the impression made by this work is of the naturalness of the creatures on display. I keep trying to say that it's their humanity that got to me, but that seems like a misuse of the term. Still, the affection of parents for young, the ways the animals ring up together for warmth and protection every night, even the sneering T-Rex feeding some ratty mammalian forebear to its young when it fails to find other prey, all of these scenes of animals co-existing and caring for one another worked on me. I am an avowed animal lover, as fond of my pets as I am most people and easily swayed to sympathy by depictions of animals on the screen. That makes it equally easy for a bad portrayal of animals - one that credits them with too many human qualities or behaviors, or one that depicts abuse - to turn me against a work, too, but Ricardo Delgado maintains an almost monastic asceticism when it comes to the characters of this book. The young scamper about and play, the adults keep watch and forage, the herd moves, the sick die, they comfort one another, they sacrifice, and throughout they never stop being animals. I kept finding myself drawing parallels between the clumps of young and the way our cats snuggle up between us at night, or between the T-Rex feeding its offspring and a mother bird bringing food to the newly hatched. For all that the dinosaurs are huge and alien, they are also depicted as being recognizably a part of our world. In that same vein, the appearance of entirely recognizable crocodiles is a jarring and surprisingly frightening reminder that the world we observe as the reader is still, in some small way, with us.

This one comic does more to help me imagine what it would have been like to see dinosaurs alive than any number of action movies or breathless narrations over CGI raptors broadcast in HD. It has a shocking variety of stories to tell and styles in which to tell them, too, and I await the fourth and final issue on pins and freakin' needles. I simply have to know the resolution to the heartbreaking image that ends issue #3. I have to know.

More info:

Story and art by Ricardo Delgado
Colors by Jim Campbell

Publisher:

[Zacharie]

Title: Blood and water (Click to go to the release post)
Writer(s): Judd Winick (Click to see other books from this writer released on this site)
Review source: Eoin Murphy (Don't click it, read the review here... )

" Blood and Water leans far more heavily towards Paranormal Romance than towards horror."
Review:

It seems everywhere you turn these days the average horror fan is assaulted by the monstrosity that is paranormal romance. You can’t walk into a bookshop without seeing it with its own dedicated section, edging out traditional horror and replacing blood sucking monsters with sexy and misunderstood immortal teens.

Unfortunately, all hope is lost for those of us who prefer our undead to be soaked in the blood of the sexy and misunderstood teens. Blood and Water is the latest piece of writing to revel in the trials and tribulations of young vampiric love, albeit with a slightly gorier approach, in what is a collected reprint of Judd Winick’s 2008/09 Vertigo comic series.

The story follows Adam Heller, once the former cool kid of his high school who, despite having Hepatitis B, was guaranteed to be a bright young star. Now, at the age of 23 Adam is dying, having contracted Hepatitis A from a bad burger. He is retaining water in his torso, spends an hour of every morning vomiting and has just gotten word he has a tumor on his liver and won’t survive the year.

All in all, it’s been a bad couple of years.

In steps Adam’s best friend Joshua and Nicole, who explain to him that they are vampires and that they would like to turn him into one in order to save his life.

Now, when I first picked up this book, I thought it could be an interesting read, having at its core a terrible dilemma, in which a young man facing an early, painful death is given the chance to embrace an eternity of killing others so that he can survive. It’s a moral and ethical conundrum which forces the reader to consider whether they themselves would kill in order to survive. Adam is initially disbelieving, confused and tempted by the offer, debating with himself and his vampiric friends about whether or not it is right to do this. That is, of course, until his vampire friends explain that they don’t need to eat humans, indeed, they can survive quite well on the blood of animals.

Reading between the lines, it seems likely that Winick introduces this spin on the vampire tale in order to do away with the inevitable plot strands linked to all the angst that comes with being a vampire (amply covered in Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel Series). Winick’s vampires drink animal blood, go out in the daylight (wearing suntan lotion of course) and get to have all the fun of undeath without having to worry about hurting any humans.

Of course, if they want to drink human blood they can. But it comes with terrible side effects - Human blood is massively addictive to vampires, and whilst it gives them enhanced strength (even for a vampire) it eventually leads to insanity and being hunted down and killed by other nosfreatu for giving the cuddly vampires a bad name.

Winick’s take on the vampire mythos ultimately therefore takes a meandering path down the road of damnation to paranormal romance. By taking away the need for human blood from his characters Winick has removed a plot point that has been the bane of all vampires since long before Buffy took her first steps, the angst ridden moment when they try to resist the red thirst until a final bloody baptism. Then some more angst about having eaten your girlfriend/best friend/math teacher/high school bully.

Yes, this theme has been done to (un)death, especially when written in the clichéd manner that infects most, if not all paranormal romance. However, by removing it Winick has also lost something that could have made Blood and Water stand out amongst other similar pieces of writing as the crux of this collection is around the effect the change has on Adam’s life. Adding a bit of bloodletting amongst the hedonism could have added a darker edge to the story and made it a more captivating read.


Rather than have to choose between his or someone else’s life, the protagonist of Blood and Water discovers that becoming a vampire means being one of beautiful people, enjoying hedonistic nights, and no one had to get hurt in the process. This lack of payback for being undead is in truth rather annoying, making the story a pretty superficial read.

Later in the narrative, presumably to add a bit of tension and conflict to the plot (please note this is where the spoilers kick in) Winick has added an ancient tribe of vampires that not only fed on humans but also on other vampires. These creatures bred with humans (in between eating them apparently) with their children only turning vampiric once they drink blood. The Tribe, as it was known, was hunted to extinction by the other vampires who didn’t want their kind to eat humans (kind of like a vampiric RSPCA) although rumour persists that some went into hiding.

It, of course, turns out that Adam is, by a remarkable coincidence, a descendent of these evil vampires and now they’ve returned in order to get him to reawaken the rest of their race. So begins a vampire versus Super vampire battle. Fair, enough you think, this should liven the story up a bit. It doesn’t and seems far too much like the end of Blade and several episodes of Buffy.

The sheer number of coincidences attached to this story soon becomes too much to sustain in such a short collection. For example: boy gets hepatitis, eats a bad burger, gets worse hepatitis, gets turned into a pointy toothed member of the cast of 90210, fancies his dead vampire friend’s girlfriend, turns out to the last descendent of an ancient evil clan of cannibalistic vampires, defeats supervamps, discovers dead friends girlfriend fancies him back...

6 issues. Too many coincidences.

The artwork within the comic series is good, with the story easy to follow and suffering from none of the confusion that the more stylistic 30 Days of Night endured. Like the writing, it serves its purpose in delivering the story but adds nothing new or different to the vampire mythos. Of note are the covers of each issue which have been included in the collection. Drawn by the legendary Brian Bolland (2000AD, Superman, etc), they are the one thing about this series that stands out.

Blood and Water tries, desperately, to create a group dynamic similar to that which was used in Grant Morrison’s classic Preacher series. Unfortunately it fails miserably, lacking the believable friendship and witty dialogue that existed between Jessie and his friends. The story is further hampered by awkward dialogue that creates an immediate barrier between the reader and the characters.

Having read the comic book you’ll find yourself dismissing it as nothing more than another superficial vampire story that adds little to the genre. It has no atmosphere attached to it and when it’s revealed that Adam lied about how he contracted Hepatitis, and actually got it from shooting up Heroin with dirty needles, you’ll find yourself wishing you had some yourself in order to liven up this drab piece of writing.

Blood and Water leans far more heavily towards Paranormal Romance than towards horror. This needn’t necessarily have been a bad thing if the writer had tried something new with an increasingly oversaturated genre (as Charlaine Harris did with the Sookie Stackhouse series) Unfortunately with such poor writing and plotting, vampires that aren’t really vampires (even the ones in the Twilight series eat the occasional human…) and uninteresting stories, Blood and Water was one comic series I just couldn’t get my teeth into.*

*The Journal Editors would like to take this opportunity to apologise for the bad pun with which this review concluded

More info:

Writer: Judd Winick
Artist: Tomm Coker

Publisher:

[Zacharie]

Title: Laika (Click to go to the release post)
Writer(s): Nick Abadzis (Click to see other books from this writer released on this site)
Review source: Andrew Wheeler (Review 1) and Brian Cronin (Review 2) (Don't click it, read the review here... )

" This is a great book. Highly Recommended."
Review:

Review 1 - This graphic novel is pretty good just on its own terms, but it’s an excellent object lesson. If you know of anyone who thinks that comics are essentially limited in scope to brightly-clad folks punching each other with great vigor, this will help to expand their horizons. It’s the story of Laika, a Russian dog who was the first living creature from Earth deliberately sent outside the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s an impressively-researched story braiding a fictional back-story for Laika (and several other characters I believe are also fictionalized) with the story of the “Chief Designer” of the early Russian space program, Sergei Korolev. And all that is told in comics, and, I suspect, primarily aimed at the grade 6-12 audience.

I’m not familiar with Adadzis’s work, but the note on him in Laika calls him an editorial consultant who “creates words and pictures for a living and loves both equally.” According to his website, muck of his work has been for children, especially recently, though he did something called Millennium Fever (with Duncan Fegredo) for Vertigo in 1995 and Children of the Voyager (with Paul Johnson) for Marvel in 1993.

Laika is a dense book; we start off with a flashback to Korolev’s release from the gulag in 1939, stop briefly at the first successful Sputnik launch in 1957, and then dive back into a long account of the life of a dog. (Who, as we all can guess, eventually becomes Laika.) This graphic novel is about two hundred pages long, and each page has about ten small panels, in shifting grids with occasional snippets of white space. And there’s quite a lot of dialogue along the way, in what I’m tempted to call the Russian manner. It’s not a quick read by any means, and the panels can get quite cramped at times. It’s never difficult to read, but there is an awful lot here. Those who judge books by how much time they take to read should enjoy Laika.

Most of the bulk of Laika is devoted to a program to use dogs to test experimental aircraft; another main character, a woman named Yelena Dubrovsky, comes to work in a kennel, taking care of the dogs. Her bosses report to Korolev on at least some projects, and her dogs are eventually tapped for Sputnik II when the then-head of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, demands that the second launch go up almost immediately and that Sputnik II contain a living being.

This isn’t the story of how the Sputniks affected the world, or scared a generation of American kids, or inspired a generation of Soviet kids, or anything large; this is a story focused on Laika and the people she affected. There’s an awful lot of back-and-forth conversations among the dog-program brass and Yelena about Laika, about other dogs, about the program in general, about Sputnik, and so on. (As I said, this is a book that feels long. The fact that they have basically the same conversation three times doesn’t help it feel any shorter, either.)

Abadzis’s art feels a little scruffy to me (like Laika, perhaps?) – his people have odd-shaped heads, and his panels are often cramped. His panel-to-panel storytelling is decent but rarely notable, and there are an awful lot of single-colored backgrounds for my taste. I’m not convinced, also, that he can make faces convey the emotions that he’s trying to, and sometimes he gets in much too close on his strangely-drawn faces.

Laika will probably find its biggest audience where it expects to: among kids who want to (or have to) learn more about Sputnik and the ‘50s space race. For them, the story of a dog will help ease the pain of being educational. For adults, I’d expect this to be particular interest only to space-history fanatics and possibly animal-story buffs.


Review 2 - “Two Sputniks in the sky, had everyone hypnotized, but I am very sorry for the poor little puppy in the Russian satellite.” That is a lyric from “Russian Satellite,” an excellent song by the calypso singer, The Mighty Sparrow (which I found on an episode of Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour, which returns with new episodes in a week and a half!!!), about the death of a Russian dog who was sent into outer space in Sputnik II. Nick Abadzis’ graphic novel, Laika, is about the story of the dog itself, the woman in charge of handling the dogs for the space program, and the head of the space program, a man who years earlier was in a Russian gulag. It’s a strong cast and a strong story, and Abadzis does a wonderful job depicting it.

This is a great graphic novel.

Abadzis did an extensive job of researching the events involving the launching of Sputnik II. It is a really good backdrop for a story – the launch of Sputnik I was a massive propaganda boom, leading to Khruschev making the bold declaration that he wants a second Sputnik to be launched, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Russian Revolution – in a MONTH’S time!! This puts the head of the program, Koralev, in an almost impossible position – to launch in that much time (and be different from the first launch), they have to include a dog passenger, but they will not be able to bring the dog back.

That is all historical data – the book is not really about that historical data, but the human (and animal) background behind the facts, including the background of Laika (actual name Kudryavka – yep, they actually renamed her before they launched her into space), which Abadzis obviously had to fictionalize, but he does it well.

Koralev is an interesting character, mostly because of the amazing fact behind his rise from being in a Gulag to later becoming the head of the Russian space program (all while techinically considered only a “paroled prisoner” – he was not cleared of all charges until AFTER Sputnik I, even though there were never any crimes CHARGED against him!), but the emotional hook of the story is Yelena, the lab technician in charge of the dogs.

Here Abadzis demonstrates his manner of having Yelena communicate with the dogs, by having her basically imagine conversations between her and the dogs, but due to the dogs’ expressiveness, it feels as though they ARE saying the words she imagines them saying. Good stuff.

As you can tell, Abadzis also has a nice art style – cartoony, but never skimping on details. It is strong, and evokes emotion quite well.

By the end of the story, you will certainly be just like the Mighty Sparrow, and you will find yourself feeling “very sorry for the poor little puppy on the Russian satellite,” and Abadzis deserves a lot of credit for creating that emotion.

This is a great book.

Highly Recommended.

More info:

Written and illustrated by Nick Abadzis

Publisher:

[Zacharie]

Title: Welcome to the Jungle (Click to go to the release post)
Writer(s): Jim Butcher (Click to see other books from this writer released on this site)
Review source: Mel Odom (Don't click it, read the review here... )

" The story is straightforward and enjoyable without being a strain."
Review:

Jim Butcher’s blue collar wizard for hire Harry Dresden continues his career in novels, has taken a brief tour through television, and now has a branch office opening in comics and graphic novels. Welcome to the Jungle (Del Rey) was a four-issue arc in comics that has now come out as a hardcover graphic novel. In coming months, the books are supposed to be serialized as comics, then gathered again as graphic novels.

Welcome to the Jungle is an original story set earlier in Harry Dresden’s career as a wizard. It’s sort of a prequel, which is a good thing because Dresden’s life has gotten larger and more complicated as the novel series has progressed. Butcher admits to writing the comics as a personal desire to do new material and explore some of the character’s backstory.

The Dresden novels are a fun mashup of noir private eye novels and urban fantasy. Dresden drives a heavily used Volkswagen Beetle, consults for the Chicago Police Department when they run into magical trouble, and barely keeps his bills paid. The concept feels familiar but offers something different and occasionally distinct.

In this story, Dresden’s relationship with the police department again comes to the forefront when a mysterious mauling at the Chicago Lincoln Park Zoo turns magical. Detective Kerrin Murphy (a regular from the book series) pulls Dresden into the case, and the wizard’s senses start tingling immediately, though he doesn’t know what precisely causes the reaction.

The story is straightforward and enjoyable without being a strain. Although the first three issues end on cliffhangers, I didn’t feel compelled to finish the book in a single sitting. The breaks are natural and give the reader a chance to read the whole story in bits and pieces without demanding too much.

More info:

Written by Jim Butcher
Art by Ardian Syaf

Publisher:

[Zacharie]

Title: Knights of the Dinner Table (Click to go to the release post)
Writer(s): Jolly R. Blackburn (Click to see other books from this writer released on this site)
Review source: Lance Victor Eaton (Don't click it, read the review here... )

" There's much to be enjoyed in these graphic novels."
Review:

From the title, one might think this is a high-fantasy adventure of dueling chefs in search of the perfect meal. Or deduce a mystery series about a troupe of manners police trying to rid the world of bad table habits. Both are absurd, but what can one expect with such a title? And, of course, absurdity is what you get in Knights of the Dinner Table. Let out your inner nerd or geek and enjoy this series about the adventures of dueling role-playing gamers. For the neophyte, role-playing games are a mix of fantasy and free choice within the confines of a rubric of rules about an imaginary world. Essentially, players create characters and are instructed by the game master about the rules of the world their characters inhibit. Players seek to increase the abilities and worldly goods of their characters as make their way through various obstacles. Though it's more complicated, think Monopoly with a tour guide/director. Role-playing games took off from Dungeons & Dragons in the 1970s and 1980s. While still popular, they have been largely replaced by role-playing video and computer games and of course, the Internet.

Now before you put on the geek repellent and bypass these graphic novels with a disdain usually reserved for former classmate run-ins, rest assured that if you have a moderate awareness of pop-culture, you'll enjoy them. Tales from the Vault includes the first comic strips of Knights of the Dinner Table, originally appearing in Shadis and Dragon Magazine through the 1990s. These one-to-two page strips featured a band of four or five role-playing gamers entrenched in a (made-up) game of HackMaster. Brian, Dave, Bob and Sara make up this motley crew with Felton as game master. Other characters make occasional appearances (full profiles are provided in the back of the book). Quibbles over whose character is better, nit-picking on the rules, and sometimes all out brawling over the fine points of role-playing games, provide a decent share of laughs throughout. Bundle of Trouble presents the first three issues of the comic book: Not Ready for Syndication, Gluttons for Punishment, and License to Loot. This selection of strips has two-to-four page short pieces as well as character profiles at the end. This series continues the adventures of the games, finding newer and funnier ways to mock the sometimes extremist persona often associated with gamers.


Since the main focus is on what is being said, the art doesn't need to be extraordinary. Though well and consistently drawn, it is similar to what you find in any newspaper's comics section. But it works, and when physical attributes are emphasized, it's easy to follow. The text stands as both vessel of entertainment and a bane for the eyes in this series. The comedy derives from what's being said but sometimes, it's too much. Often, these books can't be digested in one setting. The strips vary from three to four vertical panels per page. When they use four panels, with lots of text, the eye can quickly exhaust itself. Though Tales of the Vault does this frequently, Bundle of Trouble sticks to three panels vertically, making it easier reading. Even if you're not deeply into the world of fantasy and role-playing games, there's much to be enjoyed in these graphic novels. Black and white and simply drawn, they offer great comedic material - the series can best be described as a Discovery Channel special on Nerds or maybe an example of the latest reality TV show on NerdPlanet.

More info:

Written and drawn Jolly R. Blackburn

Publisher: