Comic artists, animators and cartoonists have anthropomorphised everything from dinosaurs to wabbits, but outside of Humpty Dumpty I’d be hard pressed to name another tale committed to sentient eggs. A dark comedy on the fragility of life, Marc Schmidt’s Egg Story chronicles the beginnings, ends and omelettes of a half dozen doomed foodstuffs.

Egg Story by J. Marc Schmidt

The eggs’ journey through farm and supermarket ends with a Death Row stint inside the fridge of one Julie, who thinks nothing of cracking open the condemned and feasting on their warm gooey innards. The heartless bitch. Feather, Five Spots and Cloud soon find themselves the sole survivors, and vow to enjoy the remainder of their shelf life before they hit the frying pan.

Egg Story‘s finest moments, such as Connor’s mental deterioration following damage to his shell, have a beautifully surreal indie sensibility to them, and while the book occasionally  suffers a bit of an identity crisis – Feather’s quest to become a ninja feels like the uninspired concept for a Dreamworks animation – there’s a sense of melancholic acceptance throughout that carries this otherwise bleak existential comic.

SLG has priced Egg Story at a stupidly low $3.95, and I’d recommend this pint-sized graphic novel to any reader who hasn’t already scoffed at the premise. Schmidt hasn’t strived for as great a degree of subtext as was found in SLG’s recent translation of Elmer, and the result is a book that revels in its own oddness. A scene in which Five Spots tells a chick that has recently hatched from her lover’s shell that a relationship between egg and poultry would never work has to be one of the strangest things I’ve ever read…

7/10

Stream of consciousness storytelling is a rarity in comics, perhaps due to the script-to-art creative process which has standardised the medium, or the somewhat depressing fact that most aspiring comic creators attempt to enter the mainstream by emulating it. Aviv Ratzin’s Dreams and Everyday Life is that exception to the rule; a collection of three interconnected stories, each of which is comprised of numerous anecdotes and instances told via Ratzin’s faceless avatar.

Dreams and Everyday Life by Aviv Ratzin

There’s definitely a strong element of the autobiographical present here, though exactly what proportion of Ratzin’s rants, observations and philosophies are his own soon becomes obscured as the book takes numerous excursions, including a lengthy musing on the future of media. His droll takes on such familiar themes as creative block, illness (best line: “you’re having a bad case of cubism in your digestive system”) and our give/take relationship with technology feel genuinely fresh and entirely his own.

Dreams and Everyday Life’s peculiar narrative ricochets through time and space with a spontaneity that makes it impossible to guess where our top-hatted host will take things next. Ratzin throws his insecurity, ambitions and personal diatribes down in a deceptively chaotic fashion; just when we begin to dismiss the book as the random ramblings of a madman, he’ll returns to past characters and points with calculating wit. A trio of stickman frequently appear below the panels, commentating and bickering in tandem with Ratzin’s primary tale.

Dreams and Everyday Life - pg23

I liked Dreams and Everyday Life a lot. While many indie comic creators seem content to trail the conventions set by their peers, Aviv Ratzin’s first graphic novel (also published in Hebrew, apparently) speaks its own unique language, and is strung together by some sophisticated scene transitions that mark the debut of a thoughtful writer and inventive illustrator.

8/10

For more on Dreams and Everyday Life visit http://www.tabella.co.uk/Dreams.html.

This second volume of comic strip adventures for Ian Fleming’s perennial secret agent contains another seven collected exploits, in an affordable omnibus compilation of Titan’s previous hardback trades. Yes, this is essentially a collection of collections.

While the grade A stuff may have already been exhausted in volume 001 (Casino Royale, Goldfinger) this volume is comprised of such recognisable classics as The Man with the Golden Gun, You Only Live Twice and Octopussy. Of particular interest to illiterate Bond fans will be ‘The Hildebrand Rarity,’ the only plotline from this collection not to have made it as a cinematic offering – though elements of that story were grafted into Licence to Kill.

The James Bond Omnibus Volume 002

These strips ran throughout the 60s, with several proceeding Sean Connery’s debut in Dr No – though from the similar character design you wouldn’t have guessed it – and provide a fun rendering of such novels as The Spy Who Loved Me in an era when James was in his prime, and the series had not yet descended into the camp self-parody of Roger Moore.

These strips in sequence prove an arduous read; the format renders all attempts at drama or suspense futile, and the real thrill of Bond – the car chases, the ski chases, the, um, on-foot chases – is lost when condensed down to three panels-per-day. So what makes the serials of interest to Bond fans? John McLusky and Yaroslav Horak are both excellent artists, and their illustrations expertly evoke the fashions, flavours and automobiles of the Connery era. Horak’s art in particular is a delight, the epitome of pulp and steeped in noir stylings.

An unintentionally amusing disclaimer reads: “This book is a work of fiction. Characters may have views and use language which some of today’s readers may find offensive.” And therein lies the charm of these omnibuses from Titan Books; they showcase Bond in all his misogynistic wonder; as a soulless, unprincipled bastard who’s ostensibly out for number one however high the stakes.

For those fond of Fleming’s novels but apathetic to Hollywood’s steady neutering of 007, ‘Omnibus 002′ contains precious relics of a bygone age.

Amity Blamity follows mute four year-old Gretchen and Chester, a potbellied pig whose ability to talk seems to have earned him a place in Gretchen’s grandmother’s home, rather than hanging from and abattoir hook. Their serene, Pooh-esque playtime is frequently disrupted by Winston, a paranoid gerbil riding a shopping trolley, and the unending get-rich-quick schemes of Uncle Downey; a feckless loafer whose aspiration to succeed as a moonshiner is only hampered by his inability to abstain from enjoying his own product. And mighty fine product it must be, too, having attracted the attention of wee extraterrestrial meddlers, who have the power to turn Downey’s homebrew into… that would be telling.

Amity Blamity: Book One by Mike White

Billed as a graphic novel for “children of all ages”, Mike White’s Amity Blamity started life as online comic Pigtails and Potbellies, and has been de-colourised in its transition from digital to paper. But the shift to monochromic hasn’t neutered the passion that is evident on every page, many of which are crammed with background gags and humorous “footnotes”, and White’s gift for comically contorted facial expressions carries the increasingly nonsensical plot throughout. Amity often flows like a collection of newspaper strips, which, at 160 pages, makes this a book best read in small, frequent bursts.

Amity Blamity is charming, juvenile fun; there’s no allegory or satire to be found here (nor would I expect there to be). White is plainly pitching for a younger audience, and while I feel that Downey’s proclivities fall into areas that only an older reader will appreciate, Amity will prove a laugh-out-loud experience for  younger readers . And, of course, older, balder, fatter kids with a love for such timeless cartoon strips as Garfield and Andy Capp.

7/10

Amity Blamity is available now. Be Sure to check out Mike White’s blog for more info, not to mention some great papercraft figures of Chester, Gretchen and Downey.

Like Superman and Captain America before him, Batman was always going to best the Grim Reaper and return to the DCU – even though technically he was never dead. It was more a question of when (re: how long DC could resist restoring the status quo) than if. But with Grant Morrison overseeing the Dark Knight’s past, present and future, the results are, unsurprisingly, anything but conventional.

Following the events of Final Crisis, in which Batman was struck with Darkseid’s Omega Beams, Wayne now finds himself hurtling through time, from the Palaeolithic era through to the Wild West and 30’s Gotham; the latter providing Wayne an opportunity to view the aftermath of the Waynes’ murder from another perspective. Anyone who remembers the ludicrous Legends of the Batman action figure range from the 90s will have a good idea of what Wayne’s time-travelling escapades include, as he assumes the mantle of the Bat according to each period’s fashion.

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne

If it sounds silly, that’s because it is, and not even a superfluous subplot which follows Superman, Booster Gold and Tim Drake as they zip about through DC chronology to prevent Wayne from returning to the present – the consequence of which will tear the timeline asunder – is enough to make The Return of Bruce Wayne feel like anything less than a Batman-restoring deus ex machina. Blue Beetle never received this level of dedication from the DCU’s finest.

Still, there are moments of quality here, and the eclectic assortment of artists (Frazier Irving’s witchfinder confrontation in Puritan America is particularly good) hit the project from every angle possible. Morrison is never short of ideas, and while the plot trips over its entangled shoelaces towards the finale, The Return of Bruce Wayne is at least imaginative, and provides a take on the character that stands out from his 70 years in funny books as something unique, for better or worse.

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne

One question that the book doesn’t answer, however, is why Bruce Wayne needs to return right now; especially when Morrison’s other Bat-book, the rollicking Batman and Robin, has made such a strong case for the contrary.

6/10

The Mark Millar hype train continues with Nemesis, a series which turns the Batman mythos on its head and supposes that an orphaned billionaire with revenge issues uses his wealth to become the fastest, fittest, smartest costumed villain in the world.

At least, that’s how Nemesis’ premise has been sold to the comic buying public. Decked out in a costume that resembles Batman’s, only inverted and minus the ears, Nemesis is essentially a super-powered serial killer; one who singles out a venerated law enforcer from around the world and puts him through a series of torturous trials, butchering friends, family and innocent bystanders in the process. In the first few pages alone, the caped criminal takes a chunk out of Tokyo before flying a plane into Washington and kidnapping the president.

Nemesis - Mark Millar, Steve McNiven

Nemesis’s latest fixation is Chief of Police Blake Morrow, a Commissioner Gordon analogue and all-round upstanding citizen. As Morrow is put through the ringer, revelations concerning his marriage and teammates are exposed by the sadistic rogue, who is not only a martial arts specialist with a high-tech arsenal at his disposal, but a master manipulator and strategist.

Millar seems convinced that the “Bruce Wane as the Joker” concept is going to revolutionise the comic medium – the media surrounding the series flaunts such arrogant pitches as “makes Kick-ass look like shit!” and “Civil War? Nothing. Kick-Ass? A warm up.” – but let’s not hold bold marketing against him. It’s easy to come down hard on a series that has been so severely hyperboled that it couldn’t possibly meet expectations. A movie adaptation is already in development, and while I have my problems with Nemesis, as the comic equivalent of a big, dumb Hollywood blockbuster it inarguably delivers.

I’m not against gratuitous comic book violence, either – hell, I just read though The Boys last week – but here Millar piles on the excess without any good reason. Kick-Ass had heart, while this series is ultimately soulless. The titular villain is a sick bastard who enjoys devastating a city or forcing a teenage boy to impregnate his sister, yet he’s treated as an enviable genius with something resembling an agenda. At times the book reads (and looks) like a teenage fantasy, one devoid of morality, meaning or wit.

Nemesis promo art

Still, coming in at fewer than 100 pages, Nemesis is lean, mean, and well paced enough that less discriminating readers will certainly lap it up. It also comes as close to bringing the energy of action cinema onto the page than any comic I’ve ever read. Regular Millar collaborator Steve McNiven (Old Man Logan, Civil War) goes all out on some of the most explosive, visceral layouts ever put to panel, and the pair throw down the increasingly inventive carnage like it’s set to be illegalised. Nemesis is a guilty pleasure, then, a senseless and amoral rollercoaster ride that had the potential to be something far greater.

7/10

With Heart of Hush Paul Dini takes Jeph Loeb’s bandaged villain and injects some much needed pathos into his backstory, exploring Thomas Elliot’s warped relationship with his mother and the Elliot family’s criminal ties. The original ‘Hush’ arc was seemingly developed to give co-creator Jim Lee an opportunity to illustrate every Batman cohort and villain under the sun, and left little room for that rarest of plot elements known as character development.

Still recovering from his run-in with the Joker in the pages of Gotham Knights, Elliot has set up base in an abandoned hospital (the sort of thing that could only exist in Gotham City; does nobody have development plans for Gotham’s countless empty properties?) where he targets the only femme fatale to have ever truly captured Bruce Wayne’s heart, Selina Kyle/Catwoman, and decides it fitting to remove hers. Literally.

Batman: Heart of Hush

Dustin Nguyen does a fine job balancing of the plausible and the fantastical in Dini’s script, which juxtaposes grounded flashback scenes with cameos from the likes of Doctor Mid-Nite and Mister Terrific. Hush’s brainwashed hospital workers, courtesy of the Scarecrow’s mind-altering drugs, are particularly sinister. An army of malevolence nurses and surgeons is a concept that may sound as though it harks back to the Adam West era, but is implemented here to chilling effect.

If there’s one criticism I have of Heart of Hush it’s that, ultimately, the storyline doesn’t further the Batman mythos; a criticism which extends to most Batman titles. From page 1 onwards we know that Selina will live to fight another day, that Hush will retreat into the shadows and begin orchestrating an even more diabolical scheme (cue mockingly evil laugh)…

Batman: Heart of Hush

Nevertheless, Dini manages to make us want to see more of a character that was, prior to this arc at least, considered one of the most facile and overhyped Batman antagonists of the past decade. And that in itself is enough to make Heart of Hush glisten amongst the proverbial pile.

8/10

J. Michael Staczynski updates the Last Son of Kryton’s origin for the inaugural release from DC’s new Earth One imprint; the publisher’s latest attempt to attract new readers with monthly titles that are free from all the cumbersome continuity and convoluted history which make the DC Universe so darn interesting in the first place.

“But why oh why,” you may ask, “do we need another Superman reboot when Smallville is already half-heartedly bringing a watered down retelling of the Superman mythos to Joe Public?”

Answer: you don’t. But in all fairness, DC currently lacks a counterpart to Marvel’s Ultimate Universe, an imprint which enduring comic readers may remain opposed to, but one which managed to successfully repackage impenetrable franchises for a mainstream audience. The All-Star Superman series looked to fill a similar niche, but DC made the mistake of handing the reigns to Grant Morrison, and the result was a miniseries that, while brilliantly inventive, probably left casual readers scratching their heads.

Superman: Earth One

Just as his Thor reboot ridiculed the character with some brilliantly grounded humour, Staczynski manages to fit a few nice touches into his contemporisation of the Superman origin. Clark initially uses his abilities to earn a pro football contract, while his interview at the Daily Planet is met with Perry’s blunt admittance that the newspaper is dying a slow death.

But this reboot’s goodwill is diminished with the arrival of Tyrell, an alien hybrid of Apocalypse and Alice Cooper who’s every bit as appalling as he sounds. Tyrell and his poorly defined race were responsible for the destruction of Krypton, and threaten to destroy earth unless Kent hands himself over. Naturally, he doesn’t, and what ensues is essentially fifty pages of airborne warfare and robot skirmishes; which, in the light of the solid first act, is not only uninspired but disheartening.

Superman: Earth One

Shane Davis (JLA: The Lightning Saga, Superman/Batman) is a perfect fit for this series. His art is about as comic book as comic art can be; though given Earth One’s target audience, a conventional approach is entirely justified. Some fine inking and measured colours by Sandra Hope and Barbara Ciardo, respectively, make for an attractive, if insubstantial, coffee table placement.

Superman: Earth One is a slick package that will please its target audience: readers who are familiar with Superman from movies, video games and those oh-so iconic T-shirts, but have yet to be exposed to the source material. They’ll enjoy Straczynski’s unadventurous origin story, marvel at Davis’s grand climax and possibly even identify more with Clark Kent now that he’s taken the emo route and donned a hoodie. But regular Superman readers looking for a new take on the Man of Steel are likely to be disappointed; Earth One lacks the novelty of an Elseworlds title, and its extraterrestrial protagonist is a soulless simulacrum of the icon that they’ve clung so dearly to since childhood.

6/10

During my time writing reviews for this site, the question of what exactly defines a graphic novel as such rears its head on an almost weekly basis. I See the Promised Land, an illustrated account of the life of Martin Luther King Jr., lacks the tight panel-to-panel composition which defines the comic medium, but its traditional Bengali scroll art is unquestionably sequential.

I See the Promised Land

Imagery aside, much of the motion in this book flows from Arthur Flowers’ free-flowing words. A performance poet, musician, writer, English professor and griot storyteller, Flowers spins King’s yarn with a zealous, untamed fury that I did not quite “get” until viewing the Youtube video below. Flowers is also currently touring and performing I See the Promised Land, and I feel that to fully appreciate the book it’s essential that you at least get an idea of Arthur’s dramatic “free-form jive style”:

Flowers is joined by Bengali artist Manu Chitrakar for this fittingly multi-cultural collaboration. Chitrakar has allegedly studied Patua scroll art from the age of 12, and his paintings convey a visual poetry more than a simple visual accompaniment to Flowers’ text.  While his art does often correspond to this account of King’s lifelong struggle and tragic death, the pages on which Chitrakar takes a more rhetorical approach to the visual narrative see the book at its most evocative and powerful. Unfortunately, Guglielmo Rossi’s rudimentary page designs take away from Chitraker and Flower’s colliding passions; the book’ layout is stark and textbook, when a looser and more frenzied aesthetic would have been more appropriate.

Did I enjoy I See the Promised Land? I’m not entirely sure. This is the first book by Patua Graphics, a self-proclaimed “graphic novel imprint from South Indian publisher Tara Books, and I’m interested in seeing their subsequent titles simply because this inaugural release is so different from the conventional Western graphic novel format that it doesn’t bear comparison to anything I’ve read. This alone probably constitutes a recommendation.

I’d be interested to see the reaction teachers would receive from showing I See the Promised Land to their pupils. While it will probably come as a surprise to no one that Flowers’ tale hits some pretty didactic and sentimental notes, his words come from the heart, and are the antithesis of the stilted academia which so often chronicles the lives of legends.

I See the Promised Land will be published in the UK by Frances Lincoln, April 2011.

Seven volumes into The Boys and we’ve witnessed buggery, paedophilia, infanticide and more full-frontal nudity than you can furiously shake a rolled up Daily Mail at. Volume 7, ‘The Innocents’, is far lighter in tone than previous instalments, and while this trade lacks the clout (or indeed laughs) that the team’s encounter with the G-Men and ‘Herogasm’ provided, Ennis does get round to answering several of the questions that readers have likely been asking for some time.

The volume begins with Butcher spotting Hughie and Starlighter together, which causes him to question Hughie’s allegiance to the team. Thus, our Simon Pegg-alike is sent to spy on Super Duper, a team of useless super-teens that I’m assuming was inspired by family-friendly groups such as Power Pack, while Butcher digs for dirt.

Super Duper isn’t quite like any of the other super teams Hughie has previously encountered. Its members are decent people, for one, and despite their ineffectualness they genuinely uphold the superhero principles of their comic counterparts. Things go horribly wrong for the team, however, when reprimanded scumbag Malchemical is sent to tutor the youngsters; and much like the majority of characters in The Boys, he’s both a psychopath and a serial rapist.

The Boys Volume 7: The Innocents

A secondary plot dishes out the repercussions on Rebecca/Starlighter’s suck-off with The Seven – including A-Train, the speedster responsible for killing Hughie’s former sweetheart. Hughie was bound to find out eventually, and while things currently don’t look especially optimistic for the only two redeemable main characters in this series, Garth Ennis has usually made sure that his purist characters remain so. One of the most touching fundamentals of the series has been the way in which Hughie has provided a moral anchor to the team, one that was previously absent, and Derick Robertson illustrates his betrayal magnificently.

The Homelander’s escalating frustrating leads to a chilling climax that not only accentuates the supers’ contempt for common folk, but looks certain to shift The Boys in a new direction. Throughout this series there’s always been the sense that the gang Hughie has sided with are no better than the costumed malcontents they hunt, but it’s becoming increasingly apparent that as brutal as Butcher’s tactics are, The Boys could very well be humanity’s only hope.

8/10