Dan Traeger Comic Reviews

For those of you like me who are addicted to behind the scenes back matter, Gillen does not disappoint. Each issue has a long essay detailing everything from the origins of the world building and what references he used, to an overview of how the first round of play testing the upcoming Die RPG went. This is a must buy for fans of horror comics or just great storytelling in general.

Farmhand is a fine start to what promises to be an excellent weird horror comic from a stellar creative team at the top of their game. It has heart and bite, literally, and it's well worth picking up.

Stowaway To The Stars is a brilliant, fun comic book at its core. It's dressed up pretty, but ultimately it's simply a gorgeous piece of work. The large illustrated plates shine like the best of Byrne's "all splash pages" comic book experiments. It's a great showcase for his art and the subject matter is something John Byrne does better than almost anyone in the business. Stowaway is a rare treat and hopefully something IDW will do for other artists in the future.

If you're not reading this magnificent slice of graphic literature your life is worthless and empty and you should seriously consider buying two copies of each Mage graphic novel to make up for it. One for you and one for a friend that you really, really, really like.

The art is great, the story is always beyond phenomenal. If you haven't been following Mage, it is well worth your time and money. If you need to pick up all the back issues,Imageis very good at releasing collected editions and keeping them in print. They are readily available online and at your LCS. If you're the digital type, Mage is laid out in a panel format that lends itself well to reading it on a pad. Mage is awesome in all its incarnations! Just go buy it! You'll thank me for it later.

Burnouts #1 is well worth your time and money. It's fun, fast-paced and a nice break from the heavy-handed stories that have been sucking up a lot of Image's resources lately. Just shut your brain off and go with it. I promise you'll have fun.

Tap dance killer is an absolute jewel of a comic. It's a great story with smashingly awesome art that's written into an active and vibrant universe that will hopefully just keep expanding. I highly recommend this to anyone who likes great comics and that's everyone" well, almost everyone, but that's a story for another time.

Now, if anybody needs me I'll be up on the rooftop with my megaphone.

The Silencer resonates. It's a really precious and wonderful book. It's consistently well written with a cracking good art team. It tells a tight story with interesting and multi-layered characters. It just kicks ass on all fronts. If you're not already reading it, I highly recommend you try it. You will not be disappointed.

I enjoyed the hell out of Black Badge #1, but here's a few things to keep in mind before you pick this up. If you like your comics wall to wall action with widescreen Jim Lee style art and lots of kick-splodey special effects, this is not your comic. Kindt is a novelist at heart and he lays out his plot to slowly unspool each character in their own time. Reading Matt Kindt is an investment in time and patience that always pays off in the end. Accordingly, Black Badge is an indie art film. It's based on a solidly interesting premise with deep, highly realistic characters. It is not, however, an action movie. It's a drama. Treat it as such and you'll come out loving it.

Catapulted has a bit of a languorous pace but I suspect it will pick up with the second issue, so those of you with short attention spans won't feel left out. In the meantime check out the first issue of Catapulted. If you're in the mood to learn something interesting about France's always astounding capacity to think outside the box, or if you simply just enjoy a nice leisurely paced story about humans and the consequences of how we treat each other and our animals, this story is one I think you'll like. Sebastian skirts the edge of some pretty horrific stuff here. The space race was not kind to the animals we sent up. Laika overheated and smothered to death in her capsule (obviously nobody told the Soviets that dogs die in hot cars) and the United States killed buckets of animals before Ham the Chimpanzee made his successful flight. There are consequences to how we treat our animals and it can drastically affect how we treat each other. With Sebastian Chow's gentle guidance, I think

The credits roll stops right after the stunt team list, and we open on director Kevin Smith who looks directly at the camera and monologues for two minutes about how cool his new movie is, and as an afterthought, name drops Highspot #1. The credits continue to roll over the top of him as the music swells to drown him out. Eventually, he gives up trying to talk over the music and exits stage left.

With Chris Ryall's departure from IDW, Star Trek New Visions is ending. Most likely this will also mark the end of John Byrne's tenure on Star Trek as well. That's a shame. It's been nice having well written stories about Kirk, Spock and McCoy around.

For a writer who learned at the hip of Grant Morrison, you'd think by now Mark Millar would know better than to half-ass out a plot and try passing it off as a fully developed story.

So do I buy this or what? Maybe. It's only issue #1 so Exorsisters is just a baby. Comedy/Horror stories are tricky. Even though this series has a proven comedy writer, adding in the horror element is often harder. Sometimes it takes a while for the creative team on a comedy/horror book to even things out, (I'm looking at you Hack/Slash.) That said, Exorsisters does have some inspired moments. The reverse demonic possession and Mom's big reveal at the end are brilliant. Hopefully this will just get better as it ages. I'm definitely in this, at least for a few issues. It falls flat in a lot of ways, but I'm willing to follow this story for a while to see if it lives up to its potential.

The Dreaming #1 may improve over time. It's possible that Spurrier may get a handle on these characters. It's only issue #1 so the plot might pick up. He may just be spooling things out slowly with nothing terribly interesting for anybody but Dora to do in the meantime. This is definitely not a recommendation for the story, but if you're a fan of the artist, you can at least enjoy the pretty pictures. Give this a pass for now. It may be a lot better in the collected edition.

It's a first issue, and this creative team has potential. I'm willing to give Kelly Thompson a few issues before I nope out of this. Aah, who am I kidding. Carol Danvers is absolutely my favorite Marvel character and I'm not going anywhere. Most of you have already written off Captain Marvel as unsalvageable and that's okay. Marvel has given you buckets of reasons to do that. As for me, I remain hopeful that the new creative team will gel into something at least as special as what's currently going on in Mr. & Mrs. X. Until then I can't really recommend this to any but the most die-hard fans.

All things considered, this series is a soft recommend at best. I can see where Thompson is going with the story and I'm still optimistic that everything will turn around once she starts bringing in some of the payoff. If you're interested in this series and you missed the first issue, you might as well skip this issue as well. Captain Marvel #2 is mostly just a stepping stone to the next few issues.

Save your money. This book is just awful. The characters are despicable, cartoon depictions of humans that speak and act like no human ever would. It's in your face political without backing its posturing with a good story. To illustrate my point here, V For Vendetta is in your face political but it backs up its brashness with an amazing story populated with characters you can identify with and root for. Border Town is wrapped up in a pretty package, but ultimately it's empty and divisive. It succeeds in putting up borders, not tearing them down.

To paraphrase a metaphor from mah boi Zack; When you write comics that are well established, long running narratives, you are not an artist. You are a hot dog vendor. There are many accouterments and condiments that you can use to make the hot dog, but your end result had better be a hot dog. These are not your characters. You are caretakers for the company's IP. If you want to serve up a plate of spaghetti get out of the hot dog store. That's what Image and the massive host of independent comics companies are for. Go write characters without roughly 50 years of backstory and characterization and you won't have to worry about writing a story that takes some research. It's not that difficult a concept to grasp.

The Life of Captain Marvel #3 is flat-out horrible I don't recommend it unless you have a bird cage that needs some expensive papering. I probably wouldn't feed it to a small animal or put the bird in a situation where he can actually chew it because they still use formaldehyde in the printing process and that's just not good for anyone. If you have a puppy and you're out of piddle pads this comic would be a good candidate. Other than that, save your money. Judging by the pile of unsold copies of The Life of Captain Marvel rotting on the shelves of my LCS, I'm not telling you all anything new.