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Weird of Oz Wishes you a Happy Easter

Weird of Oz Wishes you a Happy Easter

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Mixed-media collage by Nick Ozment

Happy Easter! Or, if you do not celebrate that holiday, happy celebration of spring and the goddess of fertility!

I have nothing to review or to report today. I will soon be following my young children around as they fill their baskets with eggs. But for those of you who snuck away from the ham and hardboiled eggs long enough to log on and drop by, I wanted to be here to chat at the Gate a minute or two.

This weird blog of Oz’s is about three months old; last week, its entries entered the double digits. Today, for post number 11 (“This blog goes up to 11.” And thumbs up to those of you who get that allusion), I thought I’d mention a few of the projects I have in the works for upcoming posts. And, if you’re feeling chatty, you could help me out by letting me know if any topic in particular piques your interest, which may influence my prioritizing.

  • I’m reading Manly Wade Wellman’s complete John Thunstone collection, which I recently won in a Black Gate giveaway. When I’m done, I’ll post a review.
  • I have a stack of the complete run of Arak, Son of Thunder that is just crying out for a series of issue-by-issue breakdowns.
  • In a follow-up to an earlier post, I’d like to do an episode-by-episode guide to the new Scooby-Doo series Mystery Inc., “annotated” to note the fantasy/sci-fi/horror allusions and references peppered throughout.
  • In another follow-up, I’m hankering to try some more single-player RPGs similar to the Fighting Fantasy books that I reviewed a couple weeks back.
  • As I said from the outset, a large part of what fuels the engine of this blog is nostalgia. In that vein, I’ll be revisiting some vintage fantasy board games like Dungeon!.
  • Also — top secret confidential hush hush — over the past few years I’ve been doing some research to uncover the sources or inspirations for certain D&D monsters that burst straight from the mind of Gary Gygax, i.e., iconic D&D monsters that have no clear antecedent in myth or folklore (the rust monster, for example).
  • The last two comments to last week’s post inspired me to begin writing a piece considering the spectrum of RPG game-masters and players ranging across the continuum between pure gamers (the rules sticklers) and storytellers (those who may consult the dice, but the GM’s final call is always more bound to the service of the unfolding narrative over and above any game rules).

There are more — always more ideas floating around up here in this egg than I can pursue to all their rabbit holes — but I’ll leave it there for now.

See you in April.

Master of Shadows

Master of Shadows

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MoS 6As I mentioned last week, Red Sonja’s first series ended with issue fifteen. But cancellation often came quickly and without warning in the Bronze Age of Comics (look it up – it’s my favorite era). So there was already another Red Sonja story written and illustrated, no doubt ready for coloring, when the axe fell.

Well, nothing went to waste at the House of Ideas, so in October 1979, the story was published as a back-up feature in Savage Sword of Conan 45, in glorious black and white. Master of Shadows reads like a new direction for the series was seriously being considered before the whole thing got shut down. It’s one of the rare Red Sonja stories completely free of the supernatural and with a plot that’s far more coherent than what we’ve come to expect from the She-Devil with a Sword.

The new direction is likely due in large part to Roy Thomas being replaced as writer by Christy Marx. If that name sounds familiar, it might be because you heard an interview with her a couple months back. Maybe you’re a fan of her sword-and-sorcery limited series, Sisterhood of Steel. Maybe you’re following her current take on Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld in the pages of Sword of Sorcery.

But, more likely, you’ll remember her as the creator of Jem, the truly outrageous holographic pop singer from the 1980s. Jem would occasionally get transported back in time or shanghaied by yetis in her never-ending quest to keep the Starlight Home for Plot Device Girls open. So Marx certainly would seem to have the writing pedigree to follow-up giant clams and ancient green robots. But she instead chose a rather straight interpretation of the character.

Of course, there’s still room for fun in a straight version of Red Sonja. The story opens with our heroine trying to catch a nap in a public park. Draped out on a park bench in her chain mail bikini, she certainly draws her share of appreciative leers, but three men in particular decide to approach her with the standard “show you a good time” dialogue. Two of the three get tossed in a nearby pond, while the third, who only identifies himself as the Master of the House of Shadow, tells her that she was right to toss them, but now she should leave town as they’ll want revenge. It’s good advice, but Sonja won’t be driven off.

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Red Sonja 15

Red Sonja 15

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Red Sonja 15 coverI know I’ve gone on about this before, but cover spoilers can ruin an otherwise great story. Seriously, click the cover to Red Sonja 15 and tell me if you can guess the secret of the three dead kings. Honestly, even the title (The Tomb of Three Dead Kings!) practically gives it away.

So it is a little surprising when we open to page one and find … a mummy. Just some guy wrapped in cloth strips, surrounded by a circle of swords in the snow. Sonja stops at the sight of him and is about to take a closer look when she sees three men dressed like kings (spoiler, they are) riding in the distance. So what’s an adventurer to do? Investigate the mummy or the three kings riding together in the dark?

Sonja opts for neither. Instead, she heads in the opposite direction to a sleepy little town where she finds a warm inn to relax in.

Of course, Red Sonja’s idea of relaxing includes beating everyone at dice until her satchel is full of coins and everyone at the inn is mad at her. She gets invited into the backroom by three of the losers, only to get attacked. Even though she’s expecting it, one of them gets a lucky shot and Sonja’s quickly stripped of her sword and purse, then thrown out in the snow.

Even with her cloak, that bikini isn’t helping much in the snow. And, honestly, why would she still be wearing a bikini in the dead of winter? In fact, a metal bikini would get even colder than a regular cloth one. Even her horse is wearing a blanket.

Fortunately, Red Sonja always keeps an emergency coin in her boot, so she has enough to cover a crappy inn on the other side of town. Before she goes, she manages to steal a sword by holding a passerby at knife-point. Near as I can tell, this is just one of the shlubs she beat at dice a few hours earlier. He’s not one of the guys who attacked her and he didn’t even try to hold out on what he owed. He just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and now Sonja has a new sword.

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New Treasures: Comics: The Complete Collection by Brian Walker

New Treasures: Comics: The Complete Collection by Brian Walker

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Comics The Complete CollectionThere are coffee table books, and there are coffee table books. Brian Walker’s Comics: The Complete Collection is the latter — meaning it’s a “coffee table” book in the sense that it’s large enough to be propped up and used as a coffee table. For a family of five.

If the very existence of a 672-page, 7-pound book crammed full of vintage American comics strips from the past 110+ years isn’t enough to interest you, then you probably have no soul. But maybe this will help: this book collects 1,300 of the best newspaper strips from some of the finest comics ever created, including Walt Kelly’s Pogo, Berke Breathed’s Bloom County, Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes, Scott Adams’s Dilbert, Charles Schulz’s Peanuts, Will Eisner’s The Spirit, Gary Larson’s The Far Side, Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant, Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy, Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy, Milton Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates, Al Capp’s Li’l Abner, Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs, Dik Browne’s Hagar the Horrible, Jim Davis’s Garfield, Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie, Bill Griffith’s Zippy the Pinhead, Johnny Hart’s B.C., Geroge Herriman’s Krazy Kat, Burne Hogarth’s Tarzan, Lynn Johnston’s For Better Or For Worse, Bil Keane’s Family Circus, Hank Ketcham’s Dennis the Menace, Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo in Slumberland, Dale Messick’s Brenda Starr, Richard Outcault’s Yellow Kid, Brant Parker’s Wizard of Id, Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon, E.C. Segar’s Popeye, Mort Walker’s Beetle Bailey, Tom Wilson’s Ziggy, and Chic Young’s Blondie.

And others. Lots and lots (and lots) of others.

It’s called The Complete Collection because it was originally published in two volumes: The Comics Before 1945 and The Comics Since 1945. These survey volumes were useful in their own right, with comics organized by decade, and well-written biographical profiles, as well as thoughtful analysis of the different genres. But the omnibus collection is both an incredible value and a beautiful piece of work, the kind of gorgeous and massive tome you could place prominently in the living room, flip through for years, and never exhaust. Or use to prop up the foundation of your house, whatever.

Comics: The Complete Collection was published in April 2011 by Abrams ComicArts. It is 672 pages in hardcover, and there is unlikely to be a softcover or digital edition. It’s a bargain at $40, and you can find copies online for around $29. Highly recommended.

Red Sonja 14

Red Sonja 14

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Red Sonja 14 coverSo this issue begins with Red Sonja walking through an unnamed town at night, minding her own business. Not sure how small the town is or how late, but on page one, we see only one other person on the street and he’s sleeping on it. I’ve probably mentioned before in these reviews that I find the preponderance of unnamed towns and unnamed demons to be a bit annoying, especially coming from Roy Thomas, who’s fairly knowledgeable about all things Hyborian. Seriously, just make up a name for the town or use a real city name. No one’s going to check.

Watch. Evanston. Red Sonja’s walking through Evanston, trying to forget her beloved Suumaro (the mommy-fixated boy-king who treated his wives like slaves and wanted Sonja to join his harem – what a catch). Now let’s move along.

So Red Sonja is just minding her own business, which is pretty much all the invitation anyone seems to need to bother her. She’s approached by a glowing nobleman named Gonzallo (see, no one cares that it’s a stupid name), who offers to pay her a diamond if she’ll act as his bodyguard for a few hours. When she asks why he’s glowing, he dismisses the question by saying that he’s eccentric.

The diamond looks real, so Red Sonja lets herself be hired. The first thing Gonzallo does is guide her to his gondola (oh, so they’re in Venice) and his requisite deformed gondolier, Karon. As the three of them make their way through the canals of (Venice? Evanston? Lower Aquilonia?), Sonja notices the surroundings have begun to change and soon they’re moving through an underground canal. The chamber is lit faintly by phosphorus, just enough for Sonja to see an iron gate rising up out of the water to block the way they’d come.

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New Treasures: The Eye of the World: The Graphic Novel, Volume 3

New Treasures: The Eye of the World: The Graphic Novel, Volume 3

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The Eye of the World Graphic NovelNo, you’re not a bad person because you prefer to wait for the comic versions of major bestelling fantasy series. I’m right there with you. We are what the world has made us, and it’s not our fault.

It’s especially not our fault that the world keeps throwing all these enticing graphic novels our way. The latest series to catch my eye has been The Eye of the World, the ambitious adaptation of the first novel in Robert Jordan’s 14-volume, 10,000+ page fantasy epic The Wheel of Time.

This isn’t the first Jordan comic project. New Spring, based on his 2004 Wheel of Time prequel novel, was published by Tor in 2011 and became a New York Times bestseller — a pretty good indicator that more would be in the works. (It’s currently heavily discounted at Amazon.com.)

The first volume of the comic version of The Eye of the World was released in 2011; volume two in June of last year. Chuck Dixon, who also scripted New Spring, returned for this project; with this volume he’s paired with new artists: Marcio Fiorito, illustrator of Anne Elizabeth’s Pulse of Power, and Francis Nuguit, a comic-book illustrator from the Philippines.

Volume 3 collects issues thirteen to eighteen of the ongoing series published by Dynamite comics. It finds our heroes — Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, Moiraine, Lan Mandragoran, and the rest — split into three groups while fleeing the ancient, dead city of Shadar Logoth. Pursued by the deadly Mashadar, Perrin and Egwene attempt a dangerous river crossing and encounter a mysterious stranger, while Rand and Mat disguise themselves as apprentices on a cargo ship.

The Eye of the World: The Graphic Novel, Volume 3 was published by Tor Books on January 29, 2013. It is 176 pages in hardcover, priced at $24.99. There is no digital edition.

Red Sonja 13

Red Sonja 13

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Red Sonja 13 coverSo this is the big wrap up to the storyline that began back in issue 8. Red Sonja sneaks back into Skranos in order to reinstate Suumaro as the rightful heir to the throne. Never mind that, over the last four issues, we’ve seen that Suumaro is a misogynistic momma’s boy who can’t seem to accomplish anything on his own. His half-brother Oryx (the current heir to the throne) is even worse. The first plan is to sneak past a sleeping guard.

The next step is to steal a harem girl’s outfit. More specifically, she pays the harem girl a gold coin to remove her outfit. There’s a great panel of the harem girl covering herself in shock at the thought of removing her clothes, even though, really, that must be part of the job description. So Red Sonja has to hold a dagger to the girl’s throat, urging her to forego her usual modesty and strip off the two-piece translucent outfit. Keep in mind, Sonja’s in the girl’s room, so it’s not like anyone else will even see her before she just puts on another outfit. In fact, why doesn’t Sonja just ask her for a spare outfit, since the harem girls can’t wear the same thing every day (and if they do, um, yuck).

Once again, Red Sonja takes to the streets, dressed in a harem slave outfit that leaves more to the imagination than a chainmail bikini. But she’s in disguise now. Because, apparently, no one was looking at her face the last time she was in Skranos. It’s a pretty stupid plan, but of course it works.

One page later, she walks right up to Oryx and starts flirting with him, face uncovered. Keep in mind, this is the man who ordered her to be hung just a couple weeks earlier. Red Sonja was standing at the gallows, insulting Oryx, before his half-brother swung in and rescued her. I’m just saying, she’s someone he’s going to remember. But with a worse disguise than Clark Kent, she manages to get close to him.

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Red Sonja 12

Red Sonja 12

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Red Sonja 12 coverWhere were we? Red Sonja and the polygamist exile prince Suumaro were trying to break free of a prison palace, which was built on top of a tree by Suumaro’s sorceress mother Apah Alah shortly after her husband left her. They’d met a horned centaur who used a glass-blowing pipe to create leather eggs that hatched into thumb-sized peacocks that grew to thousands of times their original size in a matter of minutes. The centaur died. The giant peacocks died. Sonja went blind for a while. And after she got her sight back, she was approached by a demon who wanted her to steal something called the Emblem. The demon’s name is Kthonn and he offers both Sonja and Suumaro great wealth if they retrieve this issue’s mystic doodad. That’s page one.

Sonja stabs him on page two. Basically, she knows he’s going to betray her, so why not cut out a lot of useless effort and kill him now? Her logic is sound, but her blade has no effect on the demon. So instead she agrees to find the Emblem. Apparently, among other things, the Emblem has the power to free them all from the prison palace.

Suumaro uses his magic to get a general fix on the talisman’s location. Turns out it’s in yet another tower of the increasingly large prison complex. So the two of them go off in search of the thing and, as soon as they’re out of earshot, Kthonn reveals that (spoiler) he’s planning to sacrifice them as soon as they return with the Emblem. Who’s he going to sacrifice them to? We’re never told. An even bigger demon, probably.

So, Sonja, Suumaro, and Kthonn all know this is a bad deal. But everyone’s going along with it anyway, presumably because seventeen pages aren’t going to fill themselves. And when they reach the (unguarded) chamber where the Emblem is kept, they find four items on a table: a wand, a sword, a coin, and a cup.

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Red Sonja 11

Red Sonja 11

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Red Sonja 11 coverThe story opens with Red Sonja and Suumaro in the talons of a giant peacock, being flown away from the ruins of the sorceress Apah Alah’s honeymoon suite. It was explained (though not very clearly) last issue, but to catch up with the story (and the series in general), all you have to know is that a lot of crazy things happen to Red Sonja and she usually ends up stabbing most of those crazy things. Oh, and she’s blind after being covered in the blood of a peacock-blowing man-stallion (seriously, not half as sick as you’re thinking).

If you’re honest with yourself, you know how you’d react to being blinded, then clutched in the talon of a giant peacock. I’d be terrified. Red Sonja’s first line this issue: “I’d hoped that when death arrived for me – I’d at least be able to see well enough to spit in its face!” And that’s really all you have to know about Red Sonja.

The giant bird drops them on the upper section of the palace, where they are greeted by a bald woman with a crossbow named Narca. It turns out Narca is angry at the bird for trying to take Sonja and Suumaro out of the palace (even though the bird wasn’t taking them out of the palace, just the crumbling part of it). So she shoots the giant peacock with her crossbow, then has her army of albino gorillas drag its corpse to a giant vat of blood, where it is dumped.

Why is she so mad about Sonja and Suumaro’s escape attempt? Because she’s trapped there too. In her own wing of the palace. With an army of gorillas. And a blood pit that she uses for demonic summoning. And this isn’t even the dumbest prison set-up I’ve seen in the series (see issue two).

Sonja can’t see Narca, but Suumaro tells her that she’s “purely evil,” which he seems to conclude from the fact that she’s bald and shot a big bird. Then she shoots a second giant peacock and has it tossed into the blood pit as well. Some demon is apparently very thirsty.

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Red Sonja 10

Red Sonja 10

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Red Sonja 10 coverSo this story opens with Red Sonja and the inexplicably-still-unslain Suumaro on a reconnaissance mission. They’re traveling by raft into the least-fortified part of Skranos to gather intelligence on its fortifications. After I wrote that sentence, I realized that if they already know what part of the city is least-fortified, then haven’t they already scoped out the fortifications?

Never mind. They never make it into the city this issue anyway. Before the first page is turned, Sonja, Suumaro, and the retinue of soldiers they brought with them are attacked by winged demon-people. Suumaro is all-too-familiar with the creatures, saying that his sorceress mother, Apah Alah, created them as guardians. Sonja asks what she used them to guard.

A better question might be what kind of spy mission includes the leader of the resistance movement, a woman who drunkenly challenged the entire army to kill her, a dozen armed men, and their horses? How exactly were they expecting to slip in unnoticed?

Again, never mind. We’ve got harpies to fight. Well, for a page and a half. The harpies (or whatever) kill all the other men, as well as the horses. (Have I mentioned how badly horses get treated in this series?) Leaving Red Sonja and Suumaro on the shore of a forest. Capping the trunk of one of the largest trees is a castle.

Yeah, a castle is growing out of a tree. It’s just there, by the shore between Skranos and the rebel encampment. And nobody noticed a castle growing out of a tree up until now.

And since this Red Sonja, you guessed it. She freaks out for one panel, then moves on. Because mildly freaked out is just how she’s learned to function.

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