Publishers’ Picks/ Retailers’ Reviews -- October, 2003

CVO: Covert Vampire Operations -- Artifact #1

All reviewers secretly want books with vampire characters to be terrible, because it allows for so many snide putdowns (“this bites,” “this sucks,” etc.). No luck this time: CVO isn’t bad, just determinedly average. Hernandez offers a few mildly scary panels with the main antagonist, and Mariotte’s script keeps things moving, but there’s nothing really new going on, and no particular reason to care about any of the characters. It’s competent enough for fans of the genre, but not much more. Grade: C+.

Isaac the Pirate

Blain’s style seems too cartoony to work on a sailing epic (especially the series of exaggerated noses -- including one spectacularly Nixonian one -- he uses on many of his characters). However, his backgrounds and settings create a convincing 18th-century atmosphere, and he has a knack for adding surprisingly human twists to his characters and making the reader care about them; after a dozen pages, we’re willing to follow his painter hero around the seven seas, and hoping he’ll get back safely to his girlfriend. That’s a sign of a good storyteller. Grade: B+.
Nyx #1

Although this is nominally just another mutant book, Marvels’s trying to do something important here -- appeal to an audience, not of fans, but of typical teen readers. Thus, as with many of their recent launches, there’s (a) no mention at first of super-heroes, (b) a realistic (for comics) high school setting, and (c) an alienated/embittered main character with a tragic past, to whom something special is about to happen. That’s a typical pattern for young-adult fiction, but not for comics (although the original Spider-Man certainly used it). It’s also done well in this first issue, and it’ll be interesting to see if it can attract the wider audience that it’s aiming for. Grade: B.

The 7th Helper #1

There are intriguing concepts here, although this has some trouble deciding how serious it wants to be -- some elements are over-the-top parody (the “Eurotrash” villains, a preteen President), which works against the reader feeling anything for the characters or their situations. It’s possible to walk this tightrope (the last DC title that did it was probably Major Bummer -- not an encouraging comparison, considering that title’s sales record), but one issue isn’t enough to show yet whether this balancing act’s going to work. Grade: B-.

Union Station

Barreto does a great art job here, nailing the period costumes, autos and other aspects of the Depression setting, and the research into the true-crime massacre plot looks solid. There’s a question of whether the resolution will be as good as the setup -- always a problem with real-life stories, since real life tends to be so messy and unresolved -- but otherwise this is a good example of comics moving away from super-hero stories into other literary territory. Grade: B+.

Usagi Yojimbo #70

Sakai’s all about dependability -- he’s been offering the high-quality hijinks of his ronin rabbit and supporting cast for over 15 years, and this story offers a good sampling of the pleasures of his art, characterization, plotting and knowledge of Japanese history and custom. With all the current interest in manga, it’s a shame there aren’t more trade Usagi collections out there -- but that’s no excuse for you not to be reading him, is it? Grade: A.

Zippy Annual 2003

Zippy’s ‘way over the (you should excuse the expression) head of most people, so it isn’t surprising that few newspapers carry it (even Griffith’s home paper, the San Francisco Chronicle, tried to drop it last year, until loyal readers rallied to its defense). Here’s a year’s worth of what you’ve been missing: note the sophisticated art, the sly meta-commentary on comics and pop culture, and the wonky surrealism. Some of the strip’s obsessions seem repetitive when gathered like this (instead of spooned out once a day), but just read it sparingly, and you too can get your daily requirement of pinhead Zen. Grade: A.