New Comics Day

Another light week for me. Most weeks are, actually, when it comes to periodicals. Graphic novels/trade paperbacks/etc. are taking a larger chunk of my purchasing power, as they seem like a better value overall. More permanent. More story in one big chunk. Easier to store. Pretty much the only monthlies I get are the things I just can't wait for, or don't think will be collected. So that doesn't mean I'm about to give up on buying comic pamphlets, monthlies, floppies, whatever you want to call them; but I do think there's a notable shift, at least in the smaller independent companies, towards original graphic novels, as opposed to serialized stories that are later reprinted. And ultimately, I think that's a positive shift, at least for the way I prefer to read comics.

And so, after that rambling intro: Here's what I actually bought.

Hellboy: The Island #2 of 2 (Dark Horse, $2.99)
This two issue dose of Mike Mignola returning to his signature character is just waaaay too small. He's got such a unique style, full of character and energy, and it's especially apparent this time around. This character and world he's created just don't feel right in anybody else's hands, which makes me a bit skeptical about his plans to pass of the art duty in the next Hellboy miniseries. It seems sort of wrong to have gone 20-some odd issues on the title, keeping all the auxilliary stories by other artists in sideline titles like Weird Tales and B.P.R.D., and then to suddenly hand it over to another artist. Especially after a story that could be a huge tunring point for the title.

Even though this issue is about 75% exposition, it works. It's a great setup for the future direction of the Hellboy story, and gives Mignola plenty of room to stretch out and draw all sorts of strange cosmic entities and monsters, and sets up the stakes from here on out. And it's not as static as most villian-explains-master-plan scenes that it could be compared to. There's some give and take to the scene, and some interspersed action to keep things lively.

So where does this title go from here? Mignola has removed Hellboy from the supporting cast and circumstances that have set the stage for his stories, and pushed him closer to dealing with the role he's avoided through all his encounters. So does the focus shift from Paranormal Research and Fighting Mythical Creatures to a more blatantly apocalyptic storyline? Or now that Hellboy's beat the snot out of yet another critter urging him over to the darkside, does he continue to blithely ignore the impliactions and go back to the B.P.R.D.? I guess we'll see, but I know which one I'm hoping for, even if Mignloa isn't drawing it.

Random Encounter #4 (Viper Comics, $2.99)
It must be fight comics week. Too bad there's no new Sharknife due for a while, or we could really round things out...

This title is sort of a guilty pleasure. The artwork is super clean, with lightweight-yet-solid linework, and excellent dynamic action scenes. It's got a highly manga-influenced visual sensibility, in the character design and heavy use of action lines. The story, like Scott Pilrim and the aforementioned Sharknife, plays around with the narrative conventions and iconography of video games, with power-ups, combos, and special items playing as much a role in the story as dialogue, chatacter development, and plot.

The plot is somewhat flimsy, and unfolds with a video-game like logic, but now that we're four issues in, we're starting to see a little more development to the setting and some refinement to how this particular world works. The first few issues were essentially based on, as the title proclaims, a "random encounter" between teenagers raunning a convenience store and strange robot creatures. It makes for lightweight reading, but as the series progresses, we're getting a little more of a glimpse of a world where this sort of thing is unusal, but not unheard of. If you're looking for some candy in your comics diet, you could do far worse than to check this book out.