New Beginnings - Doomsday.1 #1

Right then readers, first thing I have to do this week is make a confession. When I saw the list of upcoming reviews included Doomsday.1 my mind initially wandered to some new spin off from DC, following a Superman villain. Luckily watching over me was the editor who left a link for me to follow to see how wrong I really was.

Doomsday.1 is a new IDW title brought to us by John Byrne - a revival of a comic called Doomsday + 1 that he did in the Seventies with writer Joe Gill. This time Byrne serves as both writer and artist. Now personally I can be a little wary of when the writer/penciller boundary is broached. Byrne's writing was also unfamiliar to me, so I did a little research before reading and I’m glad I did. John Byrne has a phenomenal back catalogue of work across a large range of brands; for instance this is the man that drew the well known Dark Phoenix arc in X-Men. His career has stemmed from artwork and moved to writing so with this settling my mind I opened the pages.

Doomsday.1 is an apt title as this is a story about the end of the world. From the lofty heights of a space station scientists have discovered and recorded a solar flare of enormous proportions, almost four times the size of the Earth. The bad news keeps coming. The flare is not dissipating and will strike Earth giving rise to a catastrophic event.

In the wake of the news breaking worldwide - after the American president takes extraordinary steps by announcing it to the nation instead of hiding the fact - the issue mainly follows how various groups around the world react, including our astronauts on the space station. While Earth is anticipating the worst, the astronauts are preparing to return.

One of my favourite parts of this story is that it feels honest. The reactions, the decisions and the actions people take don’t feel out of proportion. It may have a slightly incendiary couple of pages involving the Pope - and I’m sure someone somewhere will latch onto those frames - but aside from that it has a realistic feel to it, with a subtle hint of underlying panic. Very interesting stuff and provokes some even more interesting thoughts.

The issue ends - after a moment of self sacrifice - with the space voyagers having a rough landing and setting foot on what remains of the Earth. With only odd fires scattered here and there and no real signs of life, what do you do and where do you go?

Byrne’s artwork is a frustration to me. The very first page features the space station in orbit and is a really good image with plenty of detail, but it's not a traditionally clean image. Byrne is known for being strongly against the use of simple straight lines. After that though the artwork felt a little dated and very similar to a lot of his work from the Eighties. Another slight sticking point is the sheer volume of information, both graphically and literally, that Byrne tries to convey. You can see he has really put a large amount into this and wants to get a lot of emphasis and information across but sometimes (for example the President) this floods the frames leaving them feeling cramped. With such a strong story it would have been interesting to see how this may have worked as a collaboration with another artist instead.

On the whole the presentation and depiction of this story is good and I enjoyed it from an intellectual point of view as it made me engage with the subject matter. The second issue promises even more, as this first issue was about establishing an understanding of the situation on such a massive scale. I think this could be a sleeper hit as a result but future issues will tell all.

Matt Puddy would greatly appreciate your support for Hockey For Heroes.

Funny Pages - Chew

I’m a fan of fun.

Unashamedly, unreservedly. I don’t shy away from humorous books or comics and dismiss it as “kid’s stuff”, I seek out a good chuckle-maker as a rare prize. Sure, darker comics often lead me joyously astray (to the streets of Gotham more often than not), but I always return to fun with a warm handshake and a novelty hand buzzer. After all, it’s relatively easy to play on the fears and personal dramas of a world full of such things (according to the press anyway), but it’s a much harder, more worthy job to seek out the good in life - the things that make you smile or laugh - and try to replicate and supplement them.

In this vein, I find myself starting a new series of articles to celebrate those happy few comics that truly are “comic”. I’ve chosen a short-list of only the best: comic books that have made me personally laugh, out loud, with my actual mouth. It’s a very exclusive club, as anyone who has typed “LOL” whilst wearing a stoic expression would attest. And to allay fears that “funny” doesn’t have to mean “kiddy”, let’s start with the Image Comics series Chew.

Written by John Layman with art by Rob Guillory, Chew appeals directly to the weirder side of my sense of humour. It’s certainly one of the most unique stories I’ve ever come across! Chew deals with a world where a mysterious plague befell the USA only a handful of years before the present day, which the American government blamed on Bird Flu and promptly banned all chickens from the country. So with that fairly believable set-up, you’re already reading a comic book filled with chicken dinner speakeasies, gangsters smuggling poultry, and big businesses experimenting on frogs to get them to taste like chicken! But then it gets weird. The main protagonist, Tony Chu, is a cop who has a very specific superpower: whatever he eats, he gets a psychic impression of the history of that piece of food. He sees the cow being slaughtered for the burger. He watches the apple being sprayed with pesticide. So when the Food and Drug Administration (the most powerful Feds in the country due to the chicken situation) get wind of his powers, he has to start chowing down on dead bodies (and worse!) to solve cases.

It turns out that several characters throughout the story have food-based powers, and it’s delightful how creative these are. John Layman has done the seemingly impossible and thinks up brand new superpowers in a comic book industry awash with superheroes. He continually impresses with the sheer scale of weirdness he lays onto his fast-paced plot, never once allowing it to collapse under the weight of absurdity. Cyborgs, alien plant life, conspiracies, terrorists who look like mime artists, it all just blends together effortlessly to yank up the corners of your mouth and not let go.

Complementing this nicely is Rob Guillory’s gritty, detailed art, which works as the perfect accompaniment to Layman’s narrative. Guillory presents the world of Chew as a grimy, dirty cesspit full of disorder and food crumbs, lifted only by the wonderfully witty sight gags and Easter Eggs that litter each page. Mirroring the story nicely, the art reminds us that this is a grim world that’s stained around the edges, but it helps to laugh at it. A bit of advice though; don’t read these comics whilst eating, or you may lose your appetite. No punches are pulled, no meal left unsavoured! Not to go into too much detail, but a stand out moment for me is when Tony falls in love, and the scene manages to be emotionally touching, hilarious, and truly disgusting at the same time.

Laugh Out Loud Moment: When Tony’s hateful boss dreams of murdering Tony or allowing him to die, then reluctantly remembers how much paperwork that would cause. A close second (not counting the aforementioned love-at-first-sight scene) would be the introduction of Poyo, the uber-deadly, constantly angry, cock fighting Mexican rooster that impressively stacks up his body count whenever the story catches up with him. The famously murderous chickens from the Zelda videogames have nothing on the force of nature that is Poyo. It's little wonder that he once got his own solo one-shot issue!

Todd Marsh is hoping to continue his Digital Canvas articles as soon as the muse allows it.

New Beginnings - The Movement #1

Very well known for her recent writing on Batgirl - and the firing and subsequent re-hiring too - Gail Simone is having a prolific year. Before she came to comic books she was the author behind a body of work which identified the sexist view on the portrayal of women in comics, usually as an object or motive for male-centred stories. She has now gone on to become a writer which I (rightly or wrongly) associate with female focussed stories which have a strong empowerment theme.

The Movement is set in Coral City in the heart of the DC Universe - more specifically they have staked their claim to the Tweens between 10th street and 20th street of the city. A band of dysfunctional young superheroes have taken it upon themselves to watch over the streets, be it from crooked police officers, general criminals, or (as I anticipate the story to unfold) more high profile case such as the murderer known as the Cornea Killer.

Although the team are unknown - with members in their roster such as Mouse or Burden - there have been promises of better known characters joining the stories at later dates too (or at least New 52 versions of such characters). But aside from that very little is known about all of them combined. The issue is very much a teaser and introduction. By the end of this issue there are still a couple of characters whose names you don't know, nor do you know the full extent of their powers. It's still very much an open book.

Power is also a very key theme to this story. It revolves around what happens when you have power, how you use it and the repercussions of whether that is right or wrong. This goes back to the very beginning, as the reader is witness to an abuse of power by two police officers who don’t expect to be seen, recorded and spread across the internet for their own crime.

This all culminates through the course of this issue, as the police are not only beaten and verbally driven out of the area, but the local community demonstrates their support of the new team and their local plans. The faceless masked masses expose that even the Police Chief is someone who can be pushed to the point of crossing the line.

This cannot end well though - the second issue is teased as being a city against them.

The artwork is by Freddie Williams from Green Arrow, and although it is easy and at times fun to follow, I found the bodies blown up and out of normal proportions in both overall shape and in some of the finer details. For example there is one page where Virtue is demonstrating her power, which felt ruined to me by an excessively large nose and overly flared nostrils.

As a first issue I’m mixed. On one hand you have a power struggle storyline influenced by the real life Occupy Movement (although I was more strongly reminded of a superpowered version of Project Mayhem in Fight Club), but on the other I also had an underwhelming feeling from this new team. The artwork certainly didn’t grab me either. However the calibre of Simone’s work and a strong fan base could really carry this through for a lot of people.

One to watch develop for sure.

Matt Puddy was sad to miss Free Comic Book Day.

Free Comic Book Day 2013 - many thanks!

Thank you to everyone who helped to make Free Comic Book Day 2013 at Proud Lion such a roaring success! 

We exceeded last year's phenomenal event in every way. More comics, a larger selection, a bigger turn out... AND we ran out of comics quicker than last year too!

The photo below shows just how huge the spread on offer was before we opened the doors. Apologies to anyone who missed out, we had loads and it still wasn't enough! 

The right side features all the kids comics we also had on offer at the start of the day. Thanks to every grown up who respected our request to limit their selections from from this section to two, so that more children could get chance to get free comics! We still ran out by midday! 

We had some fantastic cosplayers on the day and it was a genuine pleasure to give out free Iron Man 3 HeroClix to those in costume. There were Watchmen, Sith, Ewoks, Batman, Iron Man and an awesome female Han Solo! Congratulations to everyone, you looked wonderful! (Thanks to Todd Marsh for the photos.)

Many thanks to everyone who persevered through the busiest part of the day, when we had to limit the people upstairs to one out, one in. And my eternal gratitude to everyone who helped out, which includes anyone who made a purchase or gave a generous donation to charity.

We had cookies and cakes on offer on the day! In the end, our bakers helped us raise £40 for Winston's Wish!

Roll on next year. Saturday 3rd May - save the date!

Ben Fardon is loving the beautiful weather.