Attack of the Volleyball Teens

Mara #1, by Brian Wood, Ming Doyle and Jordie Bellaire

Brian Wood has been on my radar since I came across the interesting title Local he produced with Ryan Kelly. That followed a young woman as she moved each issue to a new location in North America, with the episodes being full of local detail. Mara is not like that, in so far as it is not just a character study but has science fiction elements. It is set in the near future, in a world that has become completely obsessed by sport. The implication seems to be that this sports obsession somehow differentiates this future world from our own.

The eponymous Mara is the 17-year-old star player in a volleyball team. She is one of the biggest sports stars in the world. Meanwhile her brother is off in the military serving in some central Asian hellhole made up for the purposes of this comic. Things trot along until Mara's team has to play an exhibition match against an up-and-coming team. On live television Mara then exhibits bizarre super powers, which is as much of a surprise to her as to everyone else.

I am not entirely convinced by this. The future setting seemed a bit thin and lacking in detail. Maybe that would unfold over time, but for now it felt like there was not really much going on with it. The main character seemed a bit odd too - for someone in her teens, she seems wise beyond her years. Maybe this is meant to foreshadow her being superpowered and all that, but to me it just made her seem less like a real person.

Still, there are things to like here. The sporty stuff was fun (despite hating sport I have always enjoyed sport in comics). And the art (from Ming Doyle, with colours by Jordie Bellaire) is likeable too. One thing that should be saluted here is that in a story about buff teenage girl athletes, the art seems to lack a voyeuristic aspect - even a full-page picture of Mara in her underwear seems strangely desexualised. Mara looking far more white on the cover than she does inside is however a bit odd.

Overall, while this comic is somewhat interesting, there is not enough in it to bring me back for a second issue. If this turns out to be a terrible mistake, let me know.

Image source (also another review)

Some mostly-very-short reviews of other comics written by Brian Wood.

Jigsaw Woman

Demo - Volume One Love Story #3 of 6, by Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan

The interesting title of self-contained vaguely paranormal stories continues. This one is about a woman who is so obsessive-compulsive that she has post-it notes everywhere telling her what to do. Then she starts finding post-it notes written by someone else. She works in a veterinary clinic so there are some nice pictures of dogs and cats.

An inuit panda production

Man Eats

Demo #2 ("Pangs"), by Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan

You will recall that Demo is one of those titles where each issue is self-contained story focussed on the paranormal. In this one, we have this fellow whose diet is… rather unique. And it seems to be not so much a matter of outré taste but his inability to digest anything else. I like it (the comic, not the guy's diet).

Red Haired Woman, Windows

Demo #1, by Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan

Apparently this is only #1 of the new volume of Demo, volume one having been published by some minor indie publisher. This seems to be one of those self-contained-story titles. In this one, a woman has a recurring dream of seeing someone fall from the whispering gallery of St. Paul's Cathedral that she quits her job, goes to England, and makes here way to the whispering gallery. Now, if this had been a Misty's True Tale of Terror or a Tharg's Future Shock then I reckon you would know how this would end up. I maybe like it slightly more for not following that path. So yes, a likeable enough issue, with atmospheric black and white art.

Tharg's Future Panda

Comics Round Up 9/9/2006

I seem to recall saying I would talk about each week’s bag of comics. Here is this week’s.

Battler Britton (#3 of 5) by Garth Ennis and Colin Wilson.

Ennis recreates the war comics of his childhood, drafting in old-school artist Colin Wilson to make sure the various pieces of Second World War hardware are drawn so well that a true connoisseur can tell you not merely than an aircraft is a Messerschmitt Bf 109, but that it is a model F, most likely manufactured in early 1942. The story involves a squadron of British bombers (led by the eponymous Britton) who find themselves paired with a squadron of inexperienced American fighters. International rivalry ensues, though by the current issue the well-worn paths of the buddy narrative are being trod. Who cares, this is not about the story, it’s about the planes.

Y: The Last Man (#49) by Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, and José Marzan Jr..

You know the score – a mysterious plague has wiped out all males in the world, apart from the main character and his pet monkey. At the moment he and his ragtag gang of associates are in China, and may finally be on the brink of discovering what caused the plague and how they can go about making sure future males do not die of it. This episode is maybe a bit interstitial, giving the impression that exciting things are about to happen in the next couple of issues.

Local (#6) by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly.

You may recall my mentioning this previously. It follows this woman as she moves around the North American continent. Each episode is very self-contained, and goes big-time for local detail (although I cannot confirm the accuracy of said detail, as only one of the stories I have read was set somewhere I have been to, and even that is not a place I am particularly familiar with).

In this one, Megan finds herself in New York, and the story is about the travails of living with people. The narrative structure of the overall story creates an interesting contrast between the individual issue and Megan’s overall route through life. Read on its own, she comes across as a bit of a fruitloop in this episode, though when you compare it to the previous issue you realise that she seems to be pulling herself together.

I recommend this title highly. Mr Wood is perhaps best known these days for writing DMZ, a comic set in New York during a near-future Ameican civil war. The one episode I have read of that did not really impress, but now I am starting to wonder if I should give it a second chance.

The Exterminators (#9) by Simon Oliver, Tony Moore, and Andy Parks.

The previous issue went a bit relationship on my ass, but now we are back to what the strip does best – the disgustingness of bugs and other vermin. Some issues back the strip killed off the most repulsive of the human characters, but now he (or something like him) appears

Comics Roundup 5/6/2006

Oh yeah, wasn't I going to do a weekly round up of comics acquired? Perhaps so. This week I picked up two things.

Local #5, by Brian Wood & Ryan Kelly, is set in Halifax, Nova Scotia. That's why I bought it, as I have a friend who has moved there. I figured that if it was rubbish I could post it to her and she might get mild amusement out of seeing her town in pictorial form. It turns out that the story is about a disturbed woman who moves to Halifax. She seems to have problems with the truth, and behaves in an increasingly erratic manner in the arthouse cinema in which she works, before skipping the town. The story is quite affecting. Since then, I read a bit more about this Local comic. It seems like the creators have designed it such that each issue tells a self-contained story, even though the issues together form an ongoing narrative. I am sufficiently interested by this title that I will probably go and look for other issues of it, possibly today.

My Inner Bimbo #1 of 5 is by Sam Keith. Keith is a fairly cultish comics figure, despite being the co-creator of the massively popular Sandman book. His cultishness comes from his art style, which does not readily lend itself to depiction of guys in spandex twatting each other (for all that he is currently drawing a Batman title). His preferred subject matter seems a bit extreme too, often being about women in scarily abusive situations. Maybe you have read his Four Women comic, which is both brilliant and unflinching in its narrative exploitation of a WOMEN IN PERIL storyline. Anyway, This title does not seem to be driven by an abused women theme, but its sexual politics are still a bit weird. The main character is this porn-obsessed old guy in the midst of some kind of breakdown. The pornographic images he looks at have started talking to him (and not in a good way), and now his subconscious has produced a fantasy lady for him, and made her (subjectively) real. It's all pretty bizarre and somewhat heavy going, but at this stage of the game I have to say that I like it.

Other comic things - if you have not jumped aboard The Exterminators yet, then you should do so. This is a comic by Simon Oliver and Tony Moore about down at heel pest exterminators in Los Angeles, and gets a lot of its mileage from how horrible roaches are. Amazingly, the title managed to survive the early extermination of the most amusing character, and continues to go from strength to strength.

I'm also interested to hear that DC are talking about doing another series of Seaguy, the comic by Grant Morrison & Cameron Stewart that was bought by almost no one but is among the very best things they've ever published. The story thus far ended on such a miserably downbeat note that it would be really nice to see it continued.

One more thing: There was an interesting discussion on I Love Comics about the Women In Refrigerators trope, this being the tendency in comics for Really Bad Things to happen to female characters.

Comics Roundup 23/2/2006

This is actually several weeks worth, because IR slackass.

100 Bullets # 69 by Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso has sadly become so complicated that I can't really follow what's going on anymore. The fractured time sequence does not help either. And is this the second or third time that a character has had bullets pumped into them only for them to show up a few issues later going "Wow. that was a close call"?

Loveless #3 by Brian Azzarello & Marcelo Frusin: with a lot of of my regular titles folding I am flailing around for new things to buy. This is an ongoing western series, written by Azzarello and drawn by some other geezer. Azzarello has done western before, in the wonderfully bizarre "Diablo" limited series (about a Dublin country band who keep it real). Sadly, this title seems like it's already crossed the Azzarello event horizon and is barely comprehensible to a casual reader. Whatever happened to those "in previous issues" things you used to get at the start of comics?

DMZ #3 by Brian Wood & Riccardo Burchelli: Another try-out. There was a lot of buzz about this title before it started, but it seems a bit so what to me. The premise appears to be that some kind of WARRE has broken out in the USA, and New York is now divided up like Beirut or Mogadishu. Makes you think. But not enough to buy again.

Sgt. Rock: The Prophecy by Joe Kubert. At last, a good comic, with a cute puppy. Easy Company finally learn the somewhat hare-brained purpose of their mission, but things still rock along in an excitingly grim manner. I am really curious as to how Kubert will extract the squad from Latvia, not known for its accessibility to American forces in 1943.