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Goth Chick News: A Penny for More Dreadfuls

Goth Chick News: A Penny for More Dreadfuls

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Penny Dreadful Titan Comics-small Penny Dreadful Issue 1-small

You may not be familiar with the term “penny dreadful.” And no one would blame you considering that, until 2014, the term had not been in popular use since the 1890’s.

Back to the 1830s, “penny dreadfuls”were serial stories published weekly on cheap wood-pulp paper aimed at young, working-class men. Each costing one penny, the subject matter of these publications typically focused on the sensationalized and bloody (or “dreadful”) exploits of detectives, criminals, or supernatural entities. Varney the Vampire, a precursor to Dracula, as well as Sweeny Todd made their first appearances in print as subjects of the penny dreadful.

However in 2014, Showtime launched a very successful series by the same name starring Eva Green, Timothy Dalton and Josh Hartnett. Penny Dreadful featured classic characters from Victorian gothic literature such as the Frankenstein’s monster, the wolfman, Dorian Gray and Dracula as well as a host of new human characters including Vanessa Ives, Sir Malcolm Murray and Ethan Chandler. The series ran for three seasons, coming to what many fans (me included) felt was a highly unsatisfying end in 2016 .

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Jack Kirby’s Fourth World: 45 Years Later

Jack Kirby’s Fourth World: 45 Years Later

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I’ve been discussing comic books with a friend of mine who moved to Ottawa. Based on a stray comment of his, I committed to tracking down and reading Jack Kirby’s 4th World comics.

I obviously know about Darkseid and the New Gods, but from later works at DC, like the classic Great Darkness Saga in The Legion of Super-Heroes (check it out!).

And I’d read lots of 1960s Marvel Kirby as well as Machine Man and The Eternals at Marvel in the 1970s (I even blogged about The Eternals here).

Kirby was *huge* in the 1960s, having been a major creator of the current Marvel Universe. But by 1970, he was looking for a change and DC signed him to a 5-year exclusive deal.

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Star Wars Comic Spin-Offs: Poe Dameron and Doctor Aphra

Star Wars Comic Spin-Offs: Poe Dameron and Doctor Aphra

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Even since before Star Wars: Rogue One (which I reviewed here), I’ve had Star Wars on my mind. The Force Awakens was a good addition to the canon and I think I’m just generally optimistic about the franchise because George Lucas finally sold it to Disney. I appreciate George Lucas, but recognize (as we all did) that other creators would be able to do a lot more with it.

Dark Horse had the comic license to Star Wars for a long time, but Marvel (also owned by Disney) has had it for the last few years and they’ve been busy.

By my count, the main Star Wars title is past two years, and they’ve had successful and acclaimed miniseries, like Leia, Han Solo, Vader, Vader Down and so on, all helmed by great writers and art teams.

I’ve been reading two interesting spin-off series: Poe Dameron and Doctor Aphra.

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Hammers, Chemo and Disapproving Dads: Marvel’s Thor

Hammers, Chemo and Disapproving Dads: Marvel’s Thor

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Working on novels and such took me away from some of the main Marvel storylines just before Secret Wars until just after Civil War II (so I just missed a lot). I’m in the process of catching up on some Marvel real estate.

Lately I’ve been reading The Mighty Thor (they’re up to issue #13) and The Unworthy Thor (they’re up to issue #2).

For you completists, Thor goes way back to Journey Into Mystery #83, when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby made up the Asgardian god and made him fight aliens. Thor has been a popular character in Marvel who, along with Hercules, brought the divine to the Marvel Universe.

Asgard and Tales of Asgard brought in a ton of new characters into Thor’s orbit in the 1970s. The 1980s gave Thor a huge boost under creator Walt Simonson who defined the character for many modern readers.

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Rogue One: I Am One With the Force and the Force Is With Me

Rogue One: I Am One With the Force and the Force Is With Me

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A most excellent hero for this movie

When I was eight years old, some friends of the family gave me The Star Wars Storybook. Back in 1979, there was just one movie (and a confusing, once-seen Christmas special), and the action figures.

Everything I could learn of the larger universe of the movie that had changed my life was in that book. I wanted to know about the rebels, the past of Darth Vader and Kenobi, and who were these alliance pilots and Grand Moff Tarkin?

Some questions were answered in Empire, and Return of the Jedi, and others I got through comic books (I really enjoyed the Marvel Star Wars comic series started in 1977). And of course, we have the Jar-Jar infected prequels, which, with just enough denial, can be watchable for the light saber fights, or shown to children, who love them.

But it was only yesterday, when I saw Rogue One, that I saw the world I’d glimpsed when pressing my face against the glass as an eight-year old. I watched Rogue One with my brother, his eleven-year old son, and my own eleven-year old. And I really enjoyed it, in a complex way.

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Red Sonja 0

Red Sonja 0

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red-sonja-0Red Sonja first appeared in the pages of Conan the Barbarian back in the 1970s. Her distinct red hair, iconic chain mail bikini, and total indifference to absurdity quickly made her a fan-favorite. She next appeared in a string of solo adventures for Marvel Feature before getting promoted to her own series. Unfortunately, stories about a woman in a bikini fighting psychedelic monsters just became too silly and sexist as the She-Devil with a Sword made her way into the 1980s. A few years back, some hack wrote a bunch of articles for Black Gate about the glory days of Red Sonja, lamenting that she would never again be as crazy or as fun as she was in her 70s heyday.

Never say never.

Amy Chu and Carlos Gomez are heading up a new Red Sonja series in 2017 and, as a sort of pre-holiday treat, they’re offering a sixteen-page intro story at the super-low price of 25 damned cents. That’s cheaper than a lot of the original Red Sonja issues ran and I’m pretty sure they’re losing money due to printing costs alone. But they’re hoping that potential new readers will risk a quarter on a story that motivates them to stick around for the regular series. Will this gambit pay off? Time will tell.

The issue starts off with a splash page of Red Sonja running up a crumbling stairway, sword drawn in either hand, threatening a Godzilla-sized demon. It’s a badass introduction to our heroine. Or it would be, except for the fact that our first view of the She-Devil with a Sword is an upskirt shot. And Sonja’s not wearing panties. And that’s why I won’t be including panel shots with this review.

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For the Love of Monster Comics

For the Love of Monster Comics

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A few months back I spent almost $40 on eBay to acquire two dozen Monsters on the Prowl comics — late 60s and early 70s Marvel monster titles featuring the imaginative work of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and the entire Marvel bullpen at the height of their creative powers.

It was an impulse buy for sure — not the first I’ve done on eBay, and I strongly suspect it won’t be the last — and I half-expected I’d regret it almost immediately. Or at least, as soon at the package arrived. But the opposite happened. The moment I held those beautiful old artifacts in my hands, I did feel regret. But not the way I expected.

My immediate thought was, Why didn’t I bid on a lot more of these?

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Absolutely Stunning: Kill Six Billion Demons

Absolutely Stunning: Kill Six Billion Demons

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For almost a decade now, my cliché detector has been set a little too high. This affects what I like to read (if I’ve seen it before, I’ll often take a pass) and what I write (the weirder the environments and situations, the more fun I have).

I keep an eye on lot of comics and in the last years Karnak, Monstress and Nameless have caught my eye, among others. But during the summer, I got to read Kill Six Billion Demons, by Abaddon.

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Reading The Sheriff of Babylon

Reading The Sheriff of Babylon

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28953137I didn’t read many comics growing up. My pocket money was very limited and if I had a spare dollar, I was far more likely to spend it on a used fantasy or science fiction paperback than a comic book. It wasn’t that I didn’t like comics, it was simply a matter of practicality. A paperback would give me a couple of days of entertainment while a comic would only last an hour.

What comics I did read were never of the superhero variety. I liked grittier stuff like Sergeant Rock and Eerie. And of course every straight male adolescent growing up in the 1980s liked to sneak a peek at Heavy Metal.

Now that I’m older and have more spare cash, plus a kid getting into comics, I’m beginning to learn about a vast field of literature I’ve missed. Superheroes still don’t interest me (or my son) but I’ve found some really good stories set in the real world.

One of the best is The Sheriff of Babylon, published by Vertigo. A collection of the first six issues is out now.

The setting is Baghdad in 2003, as the American occupiers scramble to reorganize the country. Former police officer Christopher Henry has taken a lucrative contractor job to help train the new Iraqi police force. When one of his recruits gets murdered along with his entire family, Christopher tries to investigate the killing. He enlists the aid of Nassir al Maghreb, a former police investigator from Saddam’s regime who everyone from the CIA to a shadowy militia seem to be after. He also joins forces with Saffiya al Agani, a female Iraqi politician who spent most of her life in exile in the United States and has returned to join the interim government. Soon they find themselves in over their heads trying to make sense of Iraq’s Byzantine politics and warring factions.

Writer Tom King worked a brief stint in Iraq as a CIA operative and brings an insider’s knowledge to the story. Artist Mitch Gerards knows his subject too, and fills the larger panels with telling details.

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The Doctor Is In: Marvel’s New Doctor Strange Movie

The Doctor Is In: Marvel’s New Doctor Strange Movie

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doctor-strangeOK. I may have let on that I like Dr Strange when I wrote two blog posts about his early development in Marvel Comics:

Dr. Strange, Part I: Establishing the Mythos: Master of the Mystic Arts in The Lee-Ditko Era
Dr. Strange, Part II: Becoming Sorcerer Supreme and Dying in the Englehart Era.

I just watched the movie (here’s a trailer) and have to say I really enjoyed it. I’m not going to do anything spoilery here.

Nor do I have strong feelings about the change in the Ancient One other than to say I don’t care what gender the character is, but a Himalayan mystic should have stayed Asian, despite all the stereotype problems built in the Ancient One figure anyway.

But I am doing some puzzling over what kind of Dr. Strange I just saw. Doctor Strange as a 53-year old intellectual property of Marvel Comics has stayed remarkably faithful to the origin tone, no matter what decade, or what cross-over event he’s been involved with.

Cyclops and Professor X had their turns at being evil. Magneto had his turn at being good. The Fantastic Four has rotated its lineup. Tony Stark was a carefree millionaire who got drunk and lost his company. Steve Rogers became Nomad for a time.

But other than a few failings built into the character early in the game, Strange has remained pretty consistent. But this movie didn’t hit the tone I expected.

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