This is the latest creator owned project from writer/artist Howard Chaykin. Chaykin has two obsessions that crop up regularly in his work - a love of 1940's/1950's fashion and style, and women in expensive French lingerie. Pick up any Chaykin comic and the men invariably dress in cool 1950's suits, listen to Jazz, and meet women who wear expensive French lingerie. That said, Chaykin is a very good writer in this style, and his comics are as evocative of the period as, say, The Talented Mr Ripley was. And so American Century is his current attempt at an epic chronicle of life before the Beatles, seen through the eyes of an American army veteran who fakes his own death and hides in South America to start a new life. On the strength of the first issue it promises to be an excellent read.
GENRE: Adventure
This is the superhero book that wants to be a $300,000,000 budget Matrix movie. The emphasis on everything is BIG and BIGGER STILL. Brit writer Warren Ellis created the Authority from the ashes of Stormwatch who were originally a UN sponsored superteam, much like the Justice League of America. But where Stormwatch was effectively the government, the Authority answer only to themselves. What you therefore get is an interesting concept - do people have the right to dictate the course of world events simply because there's no one stronger than them to disagree? The Authority believe they have all the answers to make our world a perfect place to live in. And if you disagree, they'll bust your fucking head. Or as founding leader, Jenny Sparks, once put it, "We're the Authority. Behave!"
GENRE: Post Modern Superheroes
One of my handful of 'bubblegum comics' - old fashioned no nonsense stuff - traditional superheroes beating the shit out of down to earth traditional supervillains. The Avengers was one of my favourite comics when I was a kid, and I retain a sense of nostalgia out of proportion to the actual quality of the story telling. I hadn't bought the title since the mid-eighties, but the relaunch a few years ago - with a new number one, and George Perez back on art duties - was enough to make me try it again. I won't pretend this is anything it isn't. There are no surreal Grant Morrison touches, or Garth Ennis vulgarity, or Alan Moore touches of genius. It's just fun in a big old-fashioned dumb kind of way.
GENRE: Traditional Superheroes
Comics really don't get much more traditional than the Fantastic Four. Stirling super deeds, told in bold splashes of art and vibrant colours - precisely the sort of thing that seduced me into the medium when I was seven years old. Marvel is currently undergoing a bit of a renaissance with its titles, and titles like the FF are suddenly worth picking up again. The same proviso applies as with the Avengers - there's nothing clever or post modernist about these stories. The FF is the equivalent of a big budget Hollywood action movie, but done well, and that's the important point. Villains are larger than life, the heroes really can be trusted to be heroes, and there's a sense of fun to the stories.
GENRE: Traditional Superheroes
The latest in a long line of DC revamps, the current Green Arrow series is the brain child of slacker movie writer, Kevin Smith, more famous for films such as Clerks, Chasing Amy and Dogma. Showing his age as a silver age fan, and his roots as a true comics slut, Kevin has taken the Green Arrow character back to basics. Green Arrow was last seen almost ten years ago in a famous death scene, but as is so often the case in the world of comics, death is not quite the permanent inconvenience it is in the real world. However, not only is Green Arrow unaware of his own funeral, as far as he's concerned it's still the mid eighties, computers are lucky to have 16K RAM, Hal Jordan is still Green lantern, the Black Canary still has her sonic scream, and the Kids From Fame are still selling records. Quite why this is has yet to be explained.
GENRE: Traditional Superheroes
It wasn't that long ago that the title of this comic was John Constantine - Hellblazer. The new writer, Brian Azzarello has chosen to relegate John to walk on parts in his own comic, mostly involving John drinking, smoking and leering with the King of all sinister grins stapled to his face. While this sort of technique worked to great effect in the pages of Swamp Thing where John was indeed a supporting character, it seems a little out of place in his own title. Consequently there is currently nothing in the way of character development or even character for that matter. There are lots of American hardboiled crime stories, because that appears to be the only genre Brian has any interest in. Rather ironically, shortly after John's name was dropped from the title, it was announced that the Hellblazer film is going to be called Constantine, so as not to cause confusion with Clive Barker's Hellraiser. I somehow think the comic is going to have its title restored if and when the film does come out!
GENRE: Horror
It could be argued that Vertigo has been milking its Sandman franchise to the point where the udders are now raw and bleeding. With Neil Gaiman having long ago turned his back on the medium that made his reputation, DC have had to turn to other writers to produce Sandman related spin-offs. Lucifer is one of the better ones, written with the fresh style and imagination of early Gaiman, before he became the twee patron saint of Goths, and started taking his inspiration from The Wizard of Oz. Picking up the story of Lucifer (yes, the one from the Bible) after he exchanged his throne in Hell for a rather tasteful piano bar in the more fashionable end of Los Angeles, the comic is currently one of the finest examples of the Contemporary Fantasy genre in any medium you care to name.
GENRE: Horror/Modern Fantasy
Written by the bloke who created Babylon 5 apparently. Midnight Nation has an interesting premise, not too far removed from that of the TV series Neverwhere (though minus the poor production values and terrible acting). There is a parallel Earth that contains anything that we discard. It is populated with 'invisible' people - the homeless, the unloved (Goths too probably...), the mentally ill, the geeks and people without friends. They all gradually become phantoms in their own world and pass through to this other plane of existence. And in this junk yard version of our own world nothing works unless it doesn't work in the real world. So only broken telephone kiosks are any good; the only food available is scavenged from rubbish tips and bins (which fill up again as we throw away even more stuff) etc. The story is a traditional quest like adventure but it has enough good ideas to keep my attention going. Nice art too from our very own Gary Frank.
GENRE: Horror/Modern Fantasy
Jamie Delano has never achieved the same level of fame and adulation as his peers (I'm thinking here of the holy trinity of Morrison, Ennis and Gaiman), which is a real shame because Jamie has written some of the best comics of the last two decades, comics that unfortunately most people haven't read. His work on Hellblazer (he was the first writer on that title), Animal Man, Captain Britain, the brilliant 2020 Visions, Hell Eternal and other goodies should have immortalised his name in stone. Jamie is possibly the most versatile writer in comics today. Outlaw Nation is his current project - an epic tale of the Johnsons, an outlaw family with a lifespan that is measured in hundreds of years. It has the airs and graces of a classic chunk of counter culture literature, fit to rub shoulders with On the Road, Catch 22, The Naked and the Dead and The Catcher in the Rye. It's the finest example of road movie literature you'd care to read, and it's in a comic no less. I suspect however that the regular cover artist, Glen Fabry, never actually reads Outlaw Nation as his covers are so out of synch with the contents that it almost borders on misdirection.
GENRE: Counter Culture
Originality is as rare in comics as in any other medium you care to mention, but Red Star is pretty unique. It's a science fiction comic set in the far future with a Russian Empire that looks like it's still defending Stalingrad from the Nazi offensive. The artwork is rendered digitally by computer, and the effect can be quite breathtaking with a series of stylised logos and panel constructions that look and feel like a 1984 propaganda machine. The plot centres round a border war, Dune style, in which the Empire of the Red Star lose half their war fleet to a magically supported Fremen revolt. All this is told in flashbacks as Alexandra rides on a monorail over the enormous Russian cemetery containing millions of war dead - the tombstones stretching out over the horizon.
GENRE: Science Fiction
Originally part of DC Comics' ill-fated Helix range of science fiction titles, Transmet jumped ship to the Vertigo imprint when Helix went belly up, surrounded by shark like creditors. Transmet tales the tale of outlaw Gonzo journalist, Spider Jerusalem, a thinly disguised Hunter S Thompson (of Fear and Loathing fame) and his "I hate everything" exploits in an absurd city of the future. The title began as a mix of slapstick satire and early Judge Dredd weirdness, before settling down into the present paranoid political skulduggery. A lot of comic fans don't get Transmet - it's either too serious or too slapstick, or they just don't feel comfortable with the Hunter S Thompson style of writing. Certainly it's a title that benefits from being read in large chunks. Individual issues don't really stand up to random scrutiny and that's probably been the problem for casual readers.
GENRE: Science Fiction
Wonder Woman has always had a checkered history in my comic collection. I confess when I was a curious 13 year old I had a real crush on Wonder Woman, or rather the costume she wore! There had been a fun, if somewhat kitsch, Modesty Blaise-esque run of issues 179 to 204, which were so psychedelic late sixties in look and feel that these days they make the Austin Powers films look serious in comparison. Despite having an iconic status on a par with Superman and Batman, Wonder Woman has never fared particularly well in her own title. There's always been loads of potential in the character, but a succession of less than inspired writers have wasted the opportunities to hand. But every few years I get drawn back, more out of nostalgia than anything else, and currently it's the combination of perfect covers by Adam Hughes, and interior art by Phil Jimenez that has me buying it again.
GENRE: Traditional Superheroes