Review: Conan the Barbarian #5

Bird Is the Word 

What's with the pigeon?[*] Perhaps this is a case of a cigar standing for a cigar; perhaps not. Since the latter invites conversation that the former eschews, one sees fit to indulge. Under writer Brian Wood, artists James Harren and Becky Cloonan and colorist Dave Stewart, Conan the Barbarian seeks to play with the idea of identity. This series sets Conan as novitiate -- the education of the barbarian -- a student at the alabaster feet of Bêlit, his teacher and lover. It's Conan as he learns to be Conan. In the opening story arc, Conan discovers that appearances deceive and that truth and fiction are seldom the same. In this second arc, 'The Argos Deception,' identity is a con as Bêlit, Conan and the crew of the Tigress use a ruse as a weapon and if their plan is to work, they'll need that pigeon.
  Conan the Barbarian #5 opens on a moneyed Messantian as he tends to his birds. The omniscient narrator's voice speaks of the ''glittering city of Messantia,'' ''favorable tax laws,'' and the ''assumption of freedom.'' On its face, it looks as if Wood is reaching into Conan's world to ascribe a percentage to the haves and have-nots of this port city and maybe he is, but to what end? An artist or writer's partialities or personal politics are bound to find agency in their work, and yet, those biases should serve the work.  Wood has worn his politics on his sleeve before (Channel Zero and DMZ) and if he is doing so again with Conan the Barbarian -- as is so often said on this blog -- so what? A writer of Wood's stripe doesn't force his opinions for their own sake, so what is he trying to say? If longtime Robert E. Howard fans blanch at Wood taking Conan off script how will the base feel as the politics of today occupy the Hyborian age?

  Veterans of Conan campaigns past and raw recruits can agree on one thing: this has to be the most gentle, the most peaceful start to a Conan comic … ever. Stewart bathes Messantia in early morning shades of heliotrope and tangerine as the city slowly stirs. The man tenderly takes a bird (a pigeon) from its cage and with palms upturned offers it into the air, a holy act. Harren's talent for depth and dimension shows in this scene as the smallness of the man and the bird are set off against the high-walled canyons of the city. Stewart paints the bird white to add a layer of peacefulness and tranquility. Few acts are as symbolic as the release of a bird; even if that bird has been domesticated and trained to return to its home, its cage. For now, however, it alights into the sky sans shackles. This scene of quiescent dawn ends in ragged shadow as the sun stands stunted against the wall of Conan's cage in the prison fortress. 

  So what? So some 'Richie Rich' releases a bird! Big deal. But it's a pigeon. Words and symbolism cut both ways. A pigeon is another word for a dupe, a fool, a mark. Wood uses this very subtle sign to set up the deception that will take place later in the issue with the sudden entrance of the woman [†]in white. In a twenty-two page comic with a ten page fight scene and another single page where Bêlit is masked in arterial spray, Wood takes two-and-a-half pages to show a man setting a pigeon aloft.

Why? Sure this 'free bird' juxtaposes Conan backed up against the wall of his prison cell, but even that is too pat, too on-the-nose. The pigeon counts because it symbolizes a city that can be had, it's world-building by swindle. From the jump, Conan the Barbarian has been about subverting expectations through pledge, turn and prestige -- a magic trick in tripartite arcs. Wood has taken an ordinary commodity, Conan the Barbarian, and turned him (and it) into something extraordinary.

In Messantia, money talks and a pretty face (and an arcane tradition) can overturn blind justice. Conan is kept from the hangman's noose only to be tossed into the arena against an opponent Harren draws as an upside down triangle, a bare-chested, bullet-headed bruiser with a face that looks like it was cut by a jigsaw[‡]. The champion cast to clash with Conan is from a class ''little more than court pets, warriors in retirement.'' Messantians like their fighters like their birds, kept. N'Yaga, the seer, free from the hold makes an appearance in the tumult to offer Conan a blade and sharp words about the fates. The fight finishes in a bloody ''are-you-not-entertained'' splash-page. It's the one image (besides the Massimo Carnevale cover) that misses its target. Harren ends strong with a street-level view of a Messantian boulevard buttressed by two buildings as tendrils of rosy smoke stream heavenward. The image smolders with anticipation of the story arc's conclusion in the next issue as its perspective eerily invokes the attacks of September eleventh.

  At the start of the contest, the narrator says: ''Since he was six years old, Conan has fought bigger opponents.'' It's a sentence that resonates beyond the plot or the page. Conan is totemic and at the same time open to interpretation. Brian Wood brings a novel quality to Conan the Barbarian that shows this character is more than muscle and more than a sword and sandal cliché. The narrative is drum tight. The smallest details (the littlest birds) in the art embellish overt themes and ideas of the story. To dismiss Conan the Barbarian as solely another Conan yarn is like saying the Odyssey is 'only' about a guy trying to go home or that Ulysses is 'only' about a guy who can't get laid. Conan endures.           

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[*] In an inspired (read insane) bit of chutzpah I tweeted to Mr. Wood to ask: ''pigeon or dove?''. Wood responded that the script said pigeon.

[†] Little Wilke Collins reference for you English Majors out there. You’re welcome.

[‡] Old-school Mike Zeck era Punisher shout-out for those of you old enough to remember.

Review: Anathema #1

Blessing of a Curse

Fiction lies. Popular fiction like Mystery, Fantasy and Horror fits out fiction's lies with better hats, longer coats and faster horses. Put another way, it's never about the detective, the King or the vampire. Horror holds truths to be self-evident: beware of strangers, don't overreach and stay away from cobwebby books in locked rooms. Horror desires to deceive before it fixes its teeth and allows reality (the true horror) to set in. Horror is always results-based and there are always stakes.

  Writer Rachel Deering, artist Chris Mooneyham and colorist Fares Maese dress up Anathema #1 in classic gothic tropes like remote castles, women in distress and the supernatural. Anathema opens with consecutive stories in which the past is present in two twice-told tales. Deering parallels the beginnings of her protagonist, Mercy, and Mercy's bête noire, Count Aldric Karnstein so that each origin unfurls to reveal a heroine (and a villain) both bound by bad decisions. At its heart Anathema is a hero's journey in the most parochial sense, however, Deering creates a wolf in sheep’s clothing that comments on intolerance, the consequences of (in)action and the restorative power of storytelling

  Mercy does not live up to her name (at first) as she chooses to run rather than to save her lover, Sarah, when the two are discovered by Sarah's father. Mercy escapes while Sarah is sent to burn for her sin. Mercy's escape -- in light of Sarah's capture -- is kept off-stage and it's not clear where she thought to go as she fled in blind fear. Guilt is a cruel gift that keeps giving; a tender mercy of the wicked that Mercy must channel if she is to overcome her desperation.
  Sarah's screams call Mercy back from her flight, but she arrives too late. In a shrewd twist Mercy bears witness to three unholy acts: Sarah's unjust death, the sudden slaughter of Sarah's persecutors by a murder of red-eyed crows and the in extremis reaping of Sarah's soul by those same red-eyed devils. Mercy breaks and when she does she breaks bad. All the gutters in Anathema take the black with one exception: the moment Mercy realizes the gravity of her decision not to act to save Sarah's life. In an unbroken border, Mooneyham and Maese surround a prostrate Mercy in white. It is at this nadir that she finds her voice, becomes a storyteller and seeks an audience. ¶  Deering's decision to begin Mercy's story in medias res requires a fair amount of narrative to explain the goings-on. At first, it's not clear that this is a retelling of events. Sure, all the verbs are in the past tense, but when the art is this effective it's easy to overlook grammar. Mooneyham's pencils and Maese's colors elevate the narrative exposition from only a telling into a showing. The art is so dynamic that it's easy to miss the two white narrative boxes of Mercy's interlocutor amongst the champagne colored multitude of Mercy's narration. Mooneyham and Maese's work possesses a crepuscular glee; silhouettes and macabre shadows are offset by a luminous moon and the flames of the pyre. Maese's cool color palette illuminates the story and gives it the look of stained glass. Mooneyham's figures foreground forests dense with vegetative verve and leaves awhirl symbolic of a fall. The faces of Mercy and Sarah are open, void of too much detail, but always split with tears. In the attack on the sanctimonious mob, Mooneyham backgrounds a grisly moment of a limb being torn off and hoisted into the air by one of the crows; an indelicate and emblematic image of Anathema's mark of horror.   

  Mercy laments her woeful account to Henrich, a hermit, who lives on the bayou; think of Merlin having Yoda's gibbous posture and male-pattern baldness, but with hair by Paulie "Walnuts." A lore master, of course, Henrich knows the evil that men do and knows from where soul-sucking fowl fly. He tells Mercy the story of Count Karnstein aka the soul harvester, a former plague doctor who goes mad when he cannot protect his own family from the Black Death. Torches blaze, sacred chants praised and Karnstein becomes more monster than man. Secreted away within his keep he sustains himself on his victims dying curses of God before taking their lives and their souls. In time, his own sloth and avarice causes him to be hunted down, killed and his heart quartered and spread to the four corners of the land. Mercy's eyewitness account leads Henrich to believe that the darkness gathers again and that Karnstein's toadies now labor to see their master restored to his former soul-eating glory. Henrich finishes the history lesson as the imp of the perverse seizes Mercy; she decides to reconcile her initial cowardice and save Sarah's soul be it by blessing or by curse.

  Mercy goes to Henrich for help -- his name is the first word she says after the narrative white-out -- and in spite of his poor cuticle health and the many skulls he keeps at hand, Henrich seems benevolent enough, but Horror has a funny way of making fiends of friends. Deering mirrors Mercy's story of the events of Sarah's death with Henrich's recalling of Karnstein's legacy as a way to foreshadow how actions have consequences when the black arts get invoked. By setting each story back-to-back, Deering draws a connection (intended or not) between Mercy and Karnstein. Mercy is not evil like Karnstein (not yet anyhow), but the two do share a bond when it comes to the fortitude required to make a personal sacrifice which makes each one more equal than adversary. Is it unreasonable to think that Karnstein could be a fork in the road that Mercy may one day choose to take? Deering knows her horror and it will be curious to see how close she hews to heroic customs or if she decides play more fast and loose.

   Anathema is punitive to the point of being puritanical. Words like 'sin,' and 'innocence,' 'suffering' and 'persecution' all find their way into the script and a narrative that calls for an innocent to be burned at the stake and another woman to be tortured until she curses God is nothing if not medieval. It doesn't take a seer with Henrich's faculties to notice that Deering has something to say about intolerance and ignorance. The blessing of Horror, after all, is its ability to work within an outmoded milieu that reflects current social anxieties. In the story's prologue Deering writes: ''In the hearts of those few, the fires of hatred still burn, and not a soul is spared their unyielding wrath.'' How much farther Deering develops this angle seems at odds with the choice Mercy makes at the end of the story. Unless, of course, Mercy believes as Bassanio does in The Merchant of Venice: ''To do a great right, do a little wrong [4.1.213].'' That's not to say that Deering has to temper her attack on prejudice, but by the end, she has set Mercy's course, she is dealing with different animal and there is no going back. 

  There is nothing to keep the wolf from the door in Anathema. Deering, Mooneyham and Maese craft an ageless horror story that finds purchase in today's social climate. Mercy is power. As any comic book reader knows with great power comes great responsibility; it's the blessing and the curse that makes Anathema such a charm.  _________________________________    

Anathema #1 is available as a free .pdf download at http://theironrachel.deviantart.com/

Issues #2 - #6 were successfully funded through kickstarter.com. To read more about Anathema visit http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theironrachel/anathema-keep-the-lesbian-werewolf-epic-alive

Review: Tiger Lawyer #1

A Real Shark

  My friend Mark is a consummate consumer. Rarely does he make a purchase without first having read several sundry reviews, cross-referenced different retailers to find the lowest price and either finagled a further discount or signed up for some scheme in order to 'save' a few dollars more . Although his generosity allows me to ride on his coupon clipping coattails, I find the whole endeavor the height of exhaustion. Now, that's not to say that I am the proverbial 'fool and his money,' although, yes, at times, in my less fiscally responsible youth I was known to pay retail for a CD or cover price for a book. What gives Mark the screaming fantods is the 'blind buy' which I consider less of a risk and more of an intuitive (and therefore trusted) purchase.

  So, when I saw that Eric Stephenson of Image Comics had posted Ben Rankel's drawing of a tiger dressed in a suit lapping whiskey out of a glass, I knew I had to know more and I knew in my gut that this was for me. Call it the 'thunderbolt,' call it 'love at first sight,' whatever, you know it when you know it and I knew it. Tiger Lawyer is the inspiration of Ryan Ferrier who writes and publishes the comic through his own Challenger Comics. If animals dressed as people blows your hair back (you twisted fuck) or you think that there aren't enough tigers practicing law than Tiger Lawyer is the cat's pajamas or for you more R-rated sinners, the cat's ass.

  I've earned my 30 day chip, you might say, since I stopped buying Marvel and DC proper. That's not enough of a sample size to say if my experiment has worked or not. What I can report is that I don't miss those few titles that were giving me cause to carp, but little when it came to joy. So there's that. There is no shortage of 'other' comics out there and I'll be sharing more of my finds here and on Comics Bulletin as I continue to troll Kickstarter and follow promising tweets. It may take a bit more investigation to track-down self-published or creator-owned work and I've learned that you often have to be patient, but it's not so different from any other obsessive and his object of desire be it a 20% off coupon or anthropomorphic lawyer.  Thanks again to the redoubtable Danny Djeljosevic and Mr. Jason Sacks.

  Here's the first 'graph, hit the Rawr! for the lion's share -- apologies I make that joke again in the review: 

  Leave it to a guy with nothing to lose -- an innocent victim sentenced to death -- to say what every reader of Tiger Lawyer may think at first: ''You're a joke, Tiger. You're a gag. A gimmick. An animal for Pete's sake.'' What is the precedent when it comes to an anthropomorphic professional? Fish Police?  Is this some kind of one note bon mot or does Tiger Lawyer have teeth?  Rawr!

Review: Saga #3

Finding My Way
  I love the raw sound and the power of Rush's debut. I know, I know, poor old John Rutsey can't buy a ride when it comes to Neil Peart, and the lyrics are about as deep as a puddle, but man, does Alex Lifeson shred on that record or what. Few songs sound good loud. Working Man sounds at its most pure when the volume is turned all the way to the right and if you can break that fucker off, do it.

  An editor (pictures not words) by trade, I'm inclined to making small adjustments, fractions of fractions of seconds. Editing is storytelling because editing is pacing. My approach to writing is similar, I consider myself less of a writer and more of a rewriter. I've shared a few, what I consider 'early versions,' of these posts with some of my fellow bloggers-in-arms and each has preferred the raw to the wrought. Clearly there is no accounting for taste. At least I wasn't told that what I wrote was underdone.

  So, I'm trying to let things go a little more ragged, more Rush less Moving Pictures so to speak. I'm not quite ready to go full-on '72 Keith Richards, but I want to get there, someday, maybe. Then again, who wouldn't? As Bobby Keyes said about living in France while recording Exile on Main St., 'that's shitting in high cotton.' And, no, I don't know what that means either.

  Saga, now that I think of it, does have a ragged polish to it, maybe that's why it's so damn good. Bit of a spoiler, I take Brian K. Vaughn to task in this review. Yes, he's a titan, but that doesn't mean a critique of his work shouldn't push back a bit. Here's the thing I'm learning as write about comics: sycophants don't surf. Nobody wants to read a blogger give a writer or artist a tongue-bath. Same goes for the formulaic approach that includes a paragraph towards the end to 'discuss' the art. I'll grant that writing about comic book art isn't easy, get over it. Saga squares words and pictures like few series nowadays. Vaughn without Staples or the other way round wouldn't be as good; and it wouldn't be Saga.

  Thanks as always to inestimable talents of Mr. Djeljosevic and a special thanks to Jason Sacks at Comics Bulletin. Sir, it's always nice to be wanted. And a shout out to my soon to be collaborator and wheel man Daniel Elkin who has generously allowed me to ride shotgun on an upcoming series review for the very same Comics Bulletin. Here's a sample of the raw and the cooked -- a FYC ref., really? where the hell did that come from!?! -- on Saga #3, hit the ellipse for the link:

     Artist Fiona Staples fashions a design for Izabel that is without question, ingenious. Beyond Izabel's free-floating jejunum, Staples also adds little details like star-shaped earrings, bulky bracelets and a t-shirt emblazoned with a heat aflame, all of which flesh out Izabel and make her live. Izabel is the latest exemplar of the idiosyncrasy of Saga. Staples distinctive style complements Vaughn's writing and vice versa to create something that could only be Saga …

Review: Conan the Barbarian #4

Trust Exercises

  The images of splendid isolation that bookend Conan the Barbarian #4 present a poeticism that epitomize the themes of identity and belief that have been inherent in the series so far. Artist James Harren announces his presence with authority as he draws a 'Crom's eye view' of seagulls awhirl on thermals above as below the Tigress plies the waters of the Western Ocean. Harren invests this ship asea with a primal and indomitable quality as it cuts its briny wake. The image is made more resolute by colorist Dave Stewart[1] who affects a painted ship upon a painted ocean of grays and greens. In the issue's final image, Harren and Stewart change perspective and ratchet up the majesty as they call attention to starry skies and cloudy climes that dwarf a lone sentry atop a parapet. What chance does a barbarian from the north, his influential queen and their stalwart crew stand when set against the vastness of the ocean or the immensity of space? Who is on their side? ¶ Existentialism sets no sail and pulls no weight upon the deck of the Tigress. Harren's barbarian is an uncarved block, an object of pure potential. Gone is the boyish charm that Cloonan had conferred on Conan in the story's first arc. Harren hatchets[2] the Cimmerian into a sinuous cast with a wide grin that slips into awe (and awwww) when his Queen -- ''the she-panther of the Western Ocean'' -- Bêlit blots out the sun. She is his world. In Harren's hands, Bêlit becomes elfin with big doe eyes and while she still retains Cloonan's wide-hipped and long-legged design, Harren's Bêlit has become less seductress and more softened; her time with the ''grey wolf from the North,'' it seems, has taken off the edge.

  The plot of issue #4 is a customary caper in which Bêlit by proxy of N'Gora turns Conan in for a bounty (he is an escaped criminal after all) and while the good and law-abiding people and magistrates of Messantia celebrate the capture and fit out the gallows, Bêlit and the gang rob the place blind. N'Gora says, ''what else would pirates like us do, safely docked in the richest port in the land.'' 'Nuff said. In order, however, to pull off the ol' 'Wookie to cell block 1138' ruse the faux felon must believe that his friends will bust him out. Bêlit, in confidence with Conan, says, ''give me your trust.'' Conan hesitates and does not answer. Bêlit tells Conan that an army could not keep her from his side, she asks him again, point blank: ''Do you trust me?'' Conan remains silent. Conan is a work in progress at this point. Sure, he's got the girl and adventure is on the horizon, but Conan is a sole proprietorship. Conan answers only to Conan. The next stage of his apprenticeship aboard the Tigress will be to see how well he can crew.

  The port authorities take the bait (shocker!) and Conan, bound and broken, spends a dark night of the soul in a prison cell. Conan dreams -- in what's becoming a trend, Conan always dreams in the first-part of a three-part-arc -- he is out in the cold and on thin ice. He hosts a pity party, calls himself a ''fool,'' ''stupid'' and ''doomed'' for throwing in his lot with ''criminals, murderers and strangers.'' One night apart from Bêlit and Conan becomes a forlorn and lovesick naïf, ah the vagaries of the infatuate.

  As before, Conan's dreams summon Bêlit to his side. She arrives in disguise at his cell with a revised plan for escape; more than that, she gives him what he needs: solace and assurance. She confirms his thoughts and belies his fears, ''You are a fool'' says Bêlit, ''for thinking I would not shift this mountain off its base to find you again.'' What a woman. Conan still has much to learn about the power of love and that ''to become as one,'' as Bêlit says in issue #3, means more than sex, it means mating the physical (the self) to something larger, the spiritual -- love grows where Bêlit's Conan goes.

  There is an alternate and (perhaps) much more thought-provoking (and zany) reading of Conan the Barbarian #4 as a petition to long-time fans of the franchise from writer Brian Wood. Here goes: Wood is Bêlit; and the question that he asks is the same one she puts to Conan: ''Do you trust me?'' 'The Argos Deception' takes Wood off script which assistant editor Brendan Wright confirms in the letters column: ''Chapter 2 [of the source material] begins with an account of the Tigress's growing infamy … beginning in this issue Brian is creating new stories set during those years.'' When it comes to the work of Robert E. Howard, 'The Queen of the Black Coast' is a canonical text, so taking the story off course can be, as is said in Wood's native New England, tough sledding. The plot of this issue is a bit old hat, a barbarous retelling of the Trojan Horse, the Trojan Conan(?). Wood works as well with themes (see DMZ and Local) as with characters, so it would follow that this stopover in Messantia means more than a chance for fortune and glory. Longtime Conan readers refer to Wood's adaptation of the Cimmerian as unconventional[3] [my emphasis]. How an artist adapts source material is a highly personal choice as is the audience's reaction to that adaptation. A further investigation into a Conan's psyche (his identity) and his anxieties about trusting someone as powerful and influential as Bêlit -- not to mention that she is his lover and a more experienced one at that -- would seem to be a valid tact and consistent with the story so far. DMZ and Local are both bildungsromans. Is Wood, perhaps, attempting to do something similar with Conan? Or is Wood playing it safe by making Conan fit his style?

  Bêlit needs only a couple of minutes to convince Conan that her aims are true. How long will it take Wood to do the same? The question remains: Do you trust him?

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[1] It seems like every week I read at least one book in which Stewart is listed as colorist: Fatale, B.P.R.D and Conan the Barbarian to name a few. The man either requires very little sleep or is the pseudonym for a collective.

[2] Harren also hacks up N'Gora's face by carving deep fissures into his skull.

[3] In his review on Comics Bulletin, Zack Davisson writes, ''Wood is showing us a side of Conan rarely seen in comics … It was hard to grasp at first, because I am unused to this side of Conan. Most writers would give Conan a paragraph or two at best of brooding, and then have him shake such doubts from his head, realizing they won't help the situation.''

Review: Mind the Gap #1

Monday, Monday
  As titles go, Mind the Gap is a corker. If writer/creator Jim McCann's vision had found purchase as a television show, it would be easy to imagine the voice-over guy announce in the most commanding and stentorian of tones, 'coming up next, Mind the Gap ...' McCann and the art team of Rodin Esquejo and Sonia Oback deliver on this ominous title by crafting a cinematic and well-paced whodunit complete with a preternatural twist that further deepens what might otherwise be boilerplate mystery.  Pause. McCann's passion for this project is so palpable and his enthusiasms so unbridled that he includes an essay, Filling In the Gap[1], at the end of issue. McCann charges the reader to play detective, decipher clues and hunt for Easter eggs. In other words, mine Mind the Gap. On subsequent readings, one does discover details easily missed the first time through, however, closer review also turns up, at best, anachronisms and at worst a lack of editorial control that borders on laziness. It's a shame because Mind the Gap is a strong debut that stands on its own.   

  Mysteries trade in misdirection, but the narrative noise that opens this first issue regarding custom ringtones (however clever) sounds hollow and disposable. McCann seems smarter than to have his tale turn on a Lionel Ritchie ballad. Like Laura Palmer (Twin Peaks) before her, Mind the Gap's Elle Peterssen is full of secrets, the least of which is (perhaps) what happened to her and why. The attack on Elle occurs off-stage[2] and even though it precipitates the action, McCann leaves the impression that Peterssen is more than a mere victim. It's not long before the rest of the players assemble alongside Elle's hospital bed; each F.O.E. (friend of Elle's) is suspect, from Elle's chagrined boyfriend to her 'bestie'  and from Elle's bratty brother to her helicopter father and remote mother, it's a supporting cast that promises murky motives, buried secrets and (ahem) gaps needing to be filled in.

  The bedside hospital scene -- so de rigueur in today's TV landscape -- gets very sterile very quick when it comes to sequential art which is why McGann et al. leads readers to 'the Garden,' a pseudo-spirit world, a gap between the living and the not-quite-so-willing-to-commit. It's in these scenes, ironically, when Mind the Gap fires on all its synapses and the story feels most alive. Set against a glossy black background, Oback's colors allow the clean and graceful lines of Esquejo's figures to shine. Within the void of 'The Garden' Esquejo's pencils possess an intimate and soulful quality. The most striking visual is when Elle's spirit guide, Bobby, appears to her for the first time. He lights a match and then a cigarette, his face forms from smoke, an image both fantastic and fantasmic.

  Peterssen's 'second life' allows McCann to introduce fanciful elements that maintain a balance between the imagined and the unreal. In less confident hands it's easy to picture how this aspect of the story could trip into the surreal or the silly. The final page hints at a possible reality, but it feels a touch forced, a blatant red herring that neither McCann nor Peterssen (nor the reader) can expect will receive too much traction going further. Oh, that McCann could have stopped there … alas.

  In 'Filling in the Gap' McCann writes, ''I can tell you this – the attacker has been named in these 46 pages. Now to start looking for hidden clues as to WHO it is! Keep your eyes open for more Easter eggs throughout the series.'' Not counting Elle and Bobby, there are ten other characters named in this story. So, as the series tag line makes clear: ''Everyone is a suspect. No one is innocent!'' On repeated readings I did find a few fun details like the bishop bookend on Harold Crenshaw's desk (is he a powerful player or just another piece on the board?). I noticed Eddie Peterssen Jr.’s two identical (save for color) cellphones and I found myself comparing styles of hoodies, which are like eyeballs in this series because everyone seems to have (at least) two. McCann makes a point to call attention to the various clocks within the first six pages. ''Clues,'' he says, ''given to help set up a timeline.'' Thanks to McCann's clockwatching, all that was left to do was to assign the crime a date. On the second page Jo calls Dane and asks him if Elle is with him. He tells her ''no'' and assumes Elle is ''probably inside, like any sane person would be on a wet-ass President's Day.'' Problem solved, except no. Later, Jo says ''it's Tuesday.'' and then she repeats herself and says that Tuesday's are when she and Elle don't have to work at the theater. In the United States President's Day is always celebrated on the third Monday in February. According to the timeline set up in the story and confirmed by McCann, Elle was attacked prior to 4:42 PM when she tried to call Jo. So, did Jo simply lose track of the days? Twice? Or, is this an honest mistake by McCann and the editors at Image? Or, is it a clue? Call me a quibbler, but when the author asks the reader to ''have your sleuthing hat on,'' a sleuthing one should go. Here's hoping that any forthcoming details about the life and the after-life of Elle Peterssen don't leave this mystery suspect.

Update:

5/16 12:34  From Twitter: Jim McCann‏ good try, but you missed two time stamps, one on pg 9 (Monday) and one at the end, 22 hrs later (Tuesday). :-)

So close. McCann!!!

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[1] Appropriately apt or too on the nose, judge for yourself

[2] Mind the Gap is riven with references to acting, playing and the theatre. It will be interesting to see how McCann builds on these ideas throughout the run of the series.

Review: The Bulletproof Coffin: Disinterred #4

Questions

Do you believe in the orderliness of events or is your day only ordinary? Have you ever thought that sequential storytelling shackles the intimacy of creativity? What did you make of The Bulletproof Coffin: Disinterred #4? Did you find the warmth of the arts and crafts room with its redolence of paste comforting that summer you went to the camp by the lake, the one run by the Catholics? When you see a gimmick or gimcrack, do you look past it or do you appreciate its novelty? Can you spot allusions to Lovecraft? How do primary colors make you feel?
   How was the movie The Avengers? Did you ever wear X-Ray specs out in public? What sort of grade would you give David Hine on a scale of one to ten where ten is a genius and one is a quack? Who is Steve Newman, really? Would you agree with this linear equation: Shaky Kane's style is to Marvel as Roy Lichtenstein is to DC? Why 84 panels? Did you cut it up? When you see a humanoid fly, which comes to mind: Kafka, Price, or Cronenberg? Are you familiar with Padgett Powell's The Interrogative Mood? Has this turned tiresome?
  Think of the movie 2001, given only these two choices, would you describe it as 'dull' or similar to 'masturbation?' Do you think the phrase 'creator-owned' is shorthand for dissent? Who would win in a fight between the Red Wraith and The Shield of Justice? Has the self-referential run its course? Does the order of these questions matter? Did you smile at Kane's Anton LaVey? What frightens you more: a dentist's drill, a gun, or a hypodermic needle? Where do you stand on quirk? If I told you each paragraph in this review contains one-hundred words, would you believe me? 

  Did you recognize the King on the throne? What's the point of all this? If Hine asked you to stand him a pint, would you? Are 'the Beats' still relevant today or merely musty curios? Are you certain you could not give your mother Bulletproof Coffin: Disinterred #4 to read? Is it the drugs, the alcohol or the Oreo cookies? If asked to describe Kane's art, are you inclined to choose the word reductive or grotesque? Would you buy The Latex Mask if it were next to an all-ages comic book? Did you know George Adamski was a real person?

  Are red aliens less or more sinister than green aliens? Does anatomical correctness factor into your judgment when it comes to the illustration of a penis? Why aren't more reviews written in the second-person? Have you ever used the phrase, 'I'll read it in trade' as a crutch? Has the thought ever occurred to you how fun it would be to own a functional ray-gun? If Hine wrote poetry do you think it would read as opaque? Did you notice how often Kane draws circles?  If you could call on a 'Dream Detective,' what would you say? What's your story?