Don’t believe the FBI’s recent announcement regarding a “promising lead” in their forty-year search for the most infamous hijacker in history, D.B. Cooper. It is our contention this is likely an attempt to by the government to discredit the forthcoming Oni Press series, THE SECRET HISTORY OF D.B. COOPER, which finally reveals the truth regarding the case. Though the book has been in production for some time, we feel it prudent to announce it now in hopes to refute this “new evidence”.
From creator Brian Churilla, the book chronicles the life of the mythic folk hero, revealing that “The DB Cooper Incident” was not a hijacking and extortion plot as widely reported. In fact, this cover story is quite pedestrian, as what really happened nearly changed the course of human history.
The Secret History of D. B. Cooper
Written and illustrated by Brian Churilla
Full color, 22 pages
Monthly starting in March 2012
ABOUT THE FIRST ISSUE: The most infamous hijacker of all time, D.B. Cooper remains on the FBI’s most-wanted list nearly forty years after the alleged crime. For the first time, the secret history of the man and the truth regarding the hijacking will be revealed. During the height of the Cold War, a fringe group within the CIA wages a crusade on the deadliest battlefield of all: the human mind. D.B. Cooper participated in a campaign of subterfuge wherein altered states of consciousness were used to assassinate Soviet targets from afar. But as Cooper deteriorates mentally and physically, the line between two worlds blurs, and he becomes a rogue agent.
This mind-bending account of the legendary outlaw’s exploits is not to be missed!
Here’s the preview for My Maker & I by Owen Johnson, Dan Duncan, and Matt Soffe. You’ll only find it here!
In a land where imagination can take physical form, one faithless preacher man walks alone. After a woman from the stars crash-lands in his path, these two most impossible of companions journey together through a perilous landscape in order to confront The Administrator – a mysterious and powerful figure who they believe responsible for society’s collapse. Through Neverland Mall and into The Library At World’s End, The Pilgrim and Eve – along with Toto the Gecko from Mars – travel to discover what rot lies at the heart of their planet. It is there that they will discover what they truly believe in.
Written by Owen Michael Johnson, and with dazzling art by Dan Duncan and Matt Soffe, ‘My Maker & I’ is a science fiction graphic novel about hockey, space, dreams, princesses, innocence, warfare, kidnapping, faith, pop-art, lovers, creation, the end of the world, and the dangers of playing make-believe.
‘My Maker & I’ will be available globally at the end of the year through Accent UK Comics.
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A few months ago, I picked up the first volume of Garen Ewing’s The Rainbow Orchid. I had read about the book and heard wonderful reviews on it, but hadn’t had the opportunity to read it for myself until recently. Now it has become somewhat of an obsession for me.
I have always been a fan of adventure comics and movies. I grew up with a hearty fascination of Indiana Jones that influenced me to study history and archeology later in life. In comics, I think all of us have one or two adventure stories that we’d put at the top of our list as all-time favorites.
The Rainbow Orchid is a very traditional adventure story. Julius Chancer is on a mission to find the mythical rainbow orchid in India. The villains are, of course, trying to thwart his plans using whatever means possible.
The dialogue, art, and even the size of the book seem to be something that you would have picked up to read if you were a child in the 1920’s. Garen has even started his own Adventurer’s Club online where you can print out an official membership card.
In a recent interview, we had the opportunity to talk with Mr. Ewing a bit more about The Rainbow Orchid:
TPB: What made you want to create comics?
Garen Ewing: “I’ve always wanted to create comics, though by ‘always’ I really mean I can’t clearly remember when that desire started. I spent quite a bit of time in hospital as a very young kid and my mum provided me with comics to read and pencils and paper to draw with, so I think the logical outcome was to create my own comics, probably with the desire for some kind of escapism too.”
TPB: Who would you say (if anyone) was your biggest influence in comics?
GE:”I’m most inspired by various writer-artists from both the film and comic world. From film, creators such as Akira Kurosawa, Charles Chaplin, David Lean and Woody Allen would rate highly. Most of my comic influences are European – primarily Asterix and Tintin, and more recently, in relation to The Rainbow Orchid in particular, the ligne claire creators – Hergé, Jacobs, Chaland and Floc’h, to name a handful. Tezuka and Miyazaki have also had a big impact in the last few years. Acting as a base for all this, I’m sure, are all the British war and adventure comics I devoured by the bucket-load growing up in the 70s.”
TPB: What comics have you written and drawn?
GE: “Quite a few little bits and pieces for various small press anthologies over the years. I did a fairly long-running fantasy-SF adventure comic called Realm of the Sorceress in the late 80s/early 90s. I did a comic strip adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, a music/humour strip called Captain Powerchord, an SF strip called The Deep Space Man, and I was the writer on another strip called The Tower for artist David Wyatt. The Rainbow Orchid is my highest profile comic.”
TPB: How did the Rainbow Orchid come to be?
GE: “After I’d finished my adaptation of The Tempest I wanted to create a character that was all my own and who I could use in a possible series of adventures. A number of factors came together – realising comics were such hard work I pretty much decided to forget about ‘making it’ in the industry, and just do a comic purely for my own enjoyment. I also wanted it to be okay for kids and adults to read, as so many comics were ‘for mature readers’ only, and I wanted an absorbing adventure story that didn’t rely on sex or violence in its telling. The rest was just throwing in various things I was crazy about – lost world classic adventure, silent films and the 1920s, and ligne claire Franco-Belgian comics!”
TPB: Why did you choose an Orchid? Why not a statue or the Holy Grail? It’s very unique and a brilliant object to write a story around.
GE: “I started work on The Rainbow Orchid over 13 years ago, so remembering exactly how it all came together isn’t easy, but I do remember I had an earlier idea about, I think, vampire hunters in Victorian India, and during my research for that I discovered that the Victorians were obsessive orchid collectors, and so I’m sure the idea had its origin in that, and then it graduated to what eventually became a quest for the ultimate orchid.”
TPB: Everything about The Rainbow Orchid is a classic adventure style comic. Even the size of the book and the adventurer’s club – it’s like a classic radio show except in a comic – was this your intention from the start or has it grown into this?
GE: “The classic adventure vibe comes primarily from my adoration of the novels of H. Rider Haggard, the big adventure-romances, and also from his genre brethren – Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G Wells and their ilk. As for the Adventurers’ Society – which I haven’t fully got going yet – that comes from wanting to have something like the old ‘I-Spy’ club I was a member of as a child. I don’t think I had the idea of the club right at the beginning (late 90s), but certainly when I got the comic on to the web in 2002.”
TPB: What role has digital format played in your work?
GE: “I self published the first few chapters of The Rainbow Orchid and that quickly sold out. As I didn’t want to reprint, I decided to continue the story online, and that decision really saw the comic’s audience sky-rocket, from a few-hundred in the UK for the paper publication to, at its height, tens of thousands across the globe on the web. Thanks to having the comic on the web, and the buzz it was attracting, I started to get queries from mainstream book publishers which eventually lead to getting a literary agent and a book deal with Egmont, the UK’s biggest publisher of children’s books. So the digital aspect of the comic has played a vital role. The website also allows me to publish a lot of extra, rich content, which I really love to provide for my readers.”
TPB: What can we look forward to from you in the future?
GE: “Volume three of The Rainbow Orchid, the concluding chapter, will appear from Egmont in the UK and from Silvester Strips in Holland later this year. In the meantime I plan to publish a brand new shorter story on the web, available for free, and also work on a new book with the same characters, for which the plot is already mostly worked out. I really want to stay with and grow these characters and their world now, so that’s about it!”
TPB: Lastly, Spencer started a tradition this year for interviews; what questions do you have for us? Ask anything you want.
GE: “Hmm… I’d be interested to know what your favourite adventure film, novel and comic is – one of each!”
TPB: Great question. Let’s see…
Cally: “My favorite adventure movie is Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom or Willow. I honestly don’t read too many adventure comics or novels, but the closest thing to the genre that I enjoy would be Darwyn Cooke’s work on The Spirit.”
Ryan: “That’s actually a really, really tough question. Adventure, in its generic meaning, is in most everything I enjoy. It’s there in sci-fi, in fantasy, in action movies, war movies, spy movies – everywhere. There is plenty of adventure in Predator, or Conan the Barbarian, or even The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – but I wouldn’t consider those “adventure” movies. The “Adventure” genre has a very specific aesthetic to me. (Jungles, caves, dangerous animals and villains, exotic locales, etc…) I’m going to cheat a little bit.
Favorite Adventure Film (I’m changing this to Favorite Adventure Show) – Jonny Quest!
Favorite Adventure Book – This is really tough. With the Doc Savage books, and the granddaddy of awesome adventure in the Tarzan books by Edgar Rice Burroughs…. but I’m going to with The Story of the Phantom, by Lee Falk. There are 12 of them in the series, and that’s the first one (and the only one I’ve read so far). So much fun, can’t wait to read the rest.
Favorite Adventure Comics – This is really tough too. 99% of Doc Savage or The Phantom comics that I have read have been pretty bad, Tarzan wins because of the insanely beautiful Joe Kubert DC stuff and the Big John Buscema stuff for Marvel.
Jim: “My favorite movie would have to be Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The first part of that movie takes place in the canyon lands of South-Eastern Utah and I’ve explored the same places many times. I also love The 13th Warrior and Stand By Me. I’d consider those both in the adventure genre even though they have drastically different characters.
I was obsessed with Indiana Jones as a kid and have actually read a novel or two from the Indy series written by Rob MacGregor. I’d say those are my favorite, but I also enjoyed quite a few Native American adventure novels and even some Doc Savage books thanks to Ryan.
As far as comics go, I would say The Phantom is my favorite character although I haven’t really enjoyed the most recent series. I have to be honest here; The Rainbow Orchid has become one of the top adventure comics on my list and I can’t wait to read more.”
Special thanks to Garen for taking time out of his schedule to talk to us. For more information on The Rainbow Orchid and other works from Garen Ewing, visit his website here.
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This week I received the sad news that the only independent cinema in my hometown – The Lonsdale Alhambra – is set to close down after more than one hundred years of showing movies to the public. The cinema shares the building with a bingo hall that is losing money, and the owners Graves Cumberland have taken it upon themselves to sell the whole unit on the 3rd of March, effectively cutting scores of jobs and removing one of the only sources of entertainment in the small market town, with plans to turn the whole site into a chain restaurant-bar.
The move has caused uproar in the locals who procured hundreds of signatures from citizens (celebrities among them) in an effort to reverse the decision through petitions and rallies on the streets of town. The whole issue has also garnered much media attention in the News and Star and Cumberland newspapers and on news broadcasts county-wide. I’m proud of the people of my hometown for taking action in this way, and I have been inspired to present it to anyone I can in a bid to broaden awareness of what is happening to independent businesses and the arts in our communities.
I have spoken on my blog about the danger facing independent businesses before, and from my interaction with like-minded individuals in other countries I’ve since learned that it is not just a problem in Britain, my native country. Independent comic stores, record shops, art-house cinemas, and all variety of niche interest emporiums are closing down…and fast. I do not speak as a businessman but as a life-long cinema-goer. I also worked for a year in a major corporate cinema and can attest to the unethical and apathetic relationship the company kept with its staff. Believe what you read. These companies are about making as much money as possible, not providing a rounded service. Cinema is special. The lights dim and a wave of anticipation passes over you. The audience are together, taking part in a shared dream. It demands something that is sorely lacking in popular entertainment, thanks to disposable illegal downloading – it creates an event.
I had my first kiss in that cinema. I watched and discovered my favourite movies there. I escaped my parents for a few hours every Saturday. Everyone needs an escape, and it saddens me to know that for young people in my hometown that escape must now only come in the form of a drunken Saturday night. I would like to state that I am not damning the drinks industry, nor am I demonizing high-street book and record stores. Support of these enterprises is a meaningful pursuit, to be sure, but I believe the public deserves multiple options. We need art-house cinema as much as blockbusters, hard-to-find cult books as much as bestsellers, indie comic gems as much as event epics. We need to keep these places open, pump our money and our love into them, so places like the Alhambra can stay open for another hundred years. Simply put, I would not be writing at all if it wasn’t for places like that cinema. It is crucial that other kids have the opportunity to have their dreams (or nightmares) shaped in the dark of the matinee.
For information on how you can help, click here for the online petition.
Please visit these sites for more news on the Lonsdale Alhambra Cinema:
Cumberland & Westmorland Herald
*Image of Angela appears courtesy of News & Star*
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Whichever way you slice it, adaptations are difficult. Each medium – be it film, literature, comics – has its own conventions and modes of storytelling unique unto itself. The challenges of adapting a work from a different medium are many, and you always risk the polar pitfalls of alienating (or pandering to) fans of the core material. I believe in his re-launch of Conan, Kurt Busiek struck the perfect balance between honoring and absorbing the work of pulp writer Robert E. Howard, and presenting a fresh, dynamic version of those tales. Cary Nord’s vague pencils, colored without inks by Dave Stewart, were a triumph at once modern and classical. I believe that be it simply choice of artwork, or total re-invention, a spin must be put on adaptations or we risk re-telling exactly the same story and not adding to the canvas already created. David Lapham – the writer tasked with adapting the world of Robert E. Howard’s creation Kull – presents us with a perfectly capable adaptation of ‘Exile of Atlantis’ that is unfortunately relatively unremarkable and forgettable.
For me personally, Howard’s writing was so thick and heady, the atmospheres so perfectly captured, that the pungent smell of blood on the dungeon floor almost singed your nostrils. True, you could argue away this books reliance on clunky exposition on the fact that Howard himself was guilty of indulging in his adjectives (as was other Weird Tales alumnus HP Lovecraft), but because he described the settings so vividly, he got away with it. That lack of imaginative flair is missing here.
The artwork, although perfectly adequately rendered, is trapped in the Barry Windsor Smith Conan era approach to Howard’s fantasy adaptations in comics – i.e. applying a quintessentially classical presentation, designed for superhero comics, to a genre of mythical storytelling usually reserved for oil paintings. It was fresh when Windsor Smith did it in the 70’s, it’s tired and dated now. This material demands a different visual approach to capture the essence of Howard’s writing – and capture the spirit of the original work is, in my mind at least, what all adaptations should strive towards. Here, I’m sad to say, we’re some way off.
]]>For any poor, lost soul out there who has never heard the name Hellboy 
(surely there can’t be that many of you), Mike Mignola’s signature creation began life as a convention sketch at Great Salt Lake Comic-Con in 1991. That this character and his universe have been around just twenty years is astounding. As far as the history of the medium goes Hellboy is just a little demon-baby – so distinctive is the character, and so meteoric his rise, that it feels like much longer.
A demon whose true name is Anung Un Rama (the Beast of the Apocalypse), Hellboy was brought to Earth as an infant by Nazi occultists. He was discovered by the Allied Forces; amongst them, Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, who formed the United States Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD). The joy of Mignola’s creation is that it has so many different avenues to explore, being inspired by its creators’ love of everything from folklore, pulp magazines, Jack Kirby, H P Lovecraft, vintage adventure, and gothic horror. The title character straddles the line between superhero misfit and lone literary monster; his origins playing on the mythological concept of nature vs. nurture, the power of choice (Hellboy constantly shirks his role as the bringer of hell on Earth), but the whole thing is shot through with a tongue-in-cheek, blustering humour that balances the seriousness of the material.
After seeing Mignola veer towards the folklore elements more with Darkness Calls and The Wild Hunt, it has been refreshing to see the gothic elements re-emerge in The Sleeping and the Dead, not present to such vampiric splendor since the magnificent Wake the Devil. This is traditional storytelling, perfectly executed. We get English folk-songs, eerie mansions and underground crypts, but most important to the narrative conventions of Hellboy and the genre he owes so much to – the fairytale – half of the issue is taken up by a character simply telling Hellboy a story. This would seem unthinkable in a big book like this but these are the bricks the Hellboy universe is built upon: suspense, oral storytelling, and atmosphere…atmosphere is key. Mignola crafts the writing in order to tie Hellboy into an ancient history, and to give a grand sense of scale. It is the ambition here, amongst other things, that has made a modern classic of this work.
Mike Mignola himself is widely considered to be the best artist for hischaracter, the vagueness of his rendering leaving a great deal to the imagination and heightening the experience. I feel, however, that Duncan Fegredo is a better artist, keeping the sense of ambiguity while infusing the world with splashes of detail. Here, Scott Hampton does not quite meet Fegredo’s standards, making the mistake of many Hellboy artists by showing too much, by bathing everything in too much light. Having said that, the flashback scenes concerning the history of vampires in England, are evocatively drawn.
Purists will argue that this is not Hellboy canon, any Arthurian material absent, but what made Hellboy great is all present and correct in this creepy gothic series.
]]>Written by Owen Michael Johnson
“You churn around in the drawer and pull out what catches your eye, bits and pieces drawn from movies and history and your own fancy, and make something new, something no one has ever seen or imagined before.”
-Michael Chabon, Manhood for Amateurs
Despite my fearlessness in childhood, it had taken three months to pluck up the courage to enter the first comic store I ever saw. I was ten years old.
A small place in the most notorious part of Carlisle, the Imagination Station was painted black and blood red, with a black chain-link grill perpetually covering the windows in an effort to deter thieves. What the criminals of the blue-collar backstreets of the North of England would want with Silver Age comic books – predominantly featuring men in spandex – is a question that would always confuse me. It looked more like an S&M palace than a comic store, and as mum drove our busted up old mini metro past I would stare, through fear and curiosity, out the window, only to be haunted by it as I followed mum through the bright lights of the department store in the city centre. Weeks later, I deemed myself brave enough to approach.
You could never see much through the metal grill encasing the comic store’s forbidden pleasures. Its appearance seemed as concerned with scaring people off as inviting in trade. Nestled amongst the pop culture memorabilia were model kits of Leather-face, Pinhead and company, characters with names which only added to my feeling of apprehension that I was fascinated by a culture that would send me tumbling down a fetish rabbit-hole. At the front of the window stood a resin maquette of an Alien creature designed by H R Giger. I was completely mesmerized by this statue. It summed up everything that drew me into the orbit of the place. It also scared the shit out of me. Like Imagination Station itself, it was macabre and gruesome, frightening in its promise of a world not for the squeamish, like sneaking downstairs to watch a horror movie mum had banned me from watching. At the same time there was something dynamic and exciting about that eighteen inch maquette. I guess I was fascinated by comics because they were a bastard art-form, at once freed and shackled by the tag that they were not, and never would be, mentioned in the same breath as fine art. Perhaps that is why those in the know defend their title so fiercely. It was like being there when Ziggy played the last show at the Hammersmith Apollo; in on The Comedian’s joke when Watchmen hit the stands. It was theirs and theirs alone, defiantly impenetrable, and a punk-rock fuck you to those that didn’t understand it.
Times change. It is a universal fact that the term ‘geek’ as it was used in the 1980’s, as a tag to categorize an individual in possession of a niche popular culture obsession, is now totally obsolete. I am a twenty three year old male from the UK and, as far as I understand it, hail from the LAST true generation of geek, born as I was in 1987. I grew up with Nintendo, Alan Moore and Star Wars already established as calling cards into a certain sphere of existence. I did not inherit a defensive attitude to that which I loved probably because it was handed down to me, rather than forged. I was granted ten minutes (ten WHOLE minutes!) to play Donkey Kong on my cousin’s SNES. I was in the playground when the Pokémon craze landed itself on BBC News. For my generation, we carried no nostalgia for a time when humming Zelda’s theme on an imaginary Ocarina had the power of a secret handshake. There was no golden-days romance because we were born with them behind us. I suppose it is easy for me to say it is snobbish and lazy to wear your geek credentials as the badge of a martyr, because for children of my age those barriers had all but been erased.
Great works, and indeed the nerd virus itself, can strike at any moment in our lives. My mother consumed Six Feet Under, the fantastic HBO show, at a rate of knots. My father has a room dedicated to Mongolian culture, movies, and art. I disagree that being an obsessive nerd is an issue of demographic or age, as if memorizing the dialogue from Jason and The Argonauts filled the air-time that girls would take up (I responded to Y: The Last Man – a text I religiously followed through university – precisely because I was interested in girls). Being a geek now, more than ever, is used to quantify the mode of consumption rather than the content. For me, saying you loved a band before they were famous is self-congratulatory when, in fact, we should be proud of that band for winning over new fans. Instead of telling someone you ‘liked them before they were big’, try asking them what their favourite tracks are. No lasting piece of art can sustain itself without consumption, without disagreement or debate. It doesn’t matter if it’s a national phenomenon or a specialist convention with two attendees, popular culture creates connections between people who share similar interests. Once it ceases to do that, and warring tribes fight over possession, it is rendered useless.
What concerns me more is the generation following mine. There was a certain amount of scrappiness to the Star Wars trilogy, a vagueness that allowed those viewing the universe to populate it with their own imaginations. That was something I found liberating. The director of Empire Strikes Back Irvine Kirshner died last month, his death bringing with it fond memories of hurling myself through a snow day to escape the metallic stamp of AT-AT walkers. Anything that even remotely looked like a sword was swung around to the sound of blowing air through your cheeks. My worry is that technology has removed the option of audience engagement. CGI, however wonderful, cannot replace that intangible charm of seeing Harryhausen’s fingernails in the clay. That is not nostalgia speaking, but a hunger for less sanitized, adult-approved and quality controlled worlds that children are given. We shouldn’t be patronizing by having fluffy creatures tell fart-gags in a vacuous animated film, nor should we be designating a ‘child-friendly’ line of comics. We need to create a universe as vast and detailed as Tolkien’s or Lucas’s in which they can get lost. Thank god, then, for Pixar and Phillip Pullman. We are starved for good stories, deluding ourselves that we can fill that void with visual stimulation which, as satisfying as it can be in the moment, does not make us fall in love. To me, Denny O’Neill and Neal Adam’s run on Green Lantern had as much to say about the human condition as the Shakespeare we trudged through on endless school afternoons. Watchmen was my Ulysses; intoxicating but incomprehensible at fourteen, life-affirming on the journey through college. The reason these movies, video-games, comics and (insert any pop culture you were ever passionate about here) were so obsessively loved is that we built our hearts around them. Stories are something we have always and will always need. That is how new generations of film-makers, writers and musicians become inspired.
The key to the underground has been handed to the surface dwellers and the blame and thanks for that largely falls to the internet. After all, you can read the synopsis for every movie, every T.V. show, every book you desire. This has removed a certain facility of our brains designed for coming to our own conclusions about what we consume. As a writer, I also worry that this removes the ability to re-interpret and re-mould those inspirations into new art. But I look to optimism. The blame for a barren culture falls to those who create, and those who consume. Simply, if we stop watching terrible movies they will cease to be made. I firmly believe that the imaginative space of children only shrinks if they stop being imaginative. In the same way, it may be a point that the internet makes it harder than ever for struggling artists to be heard. Interesting thought, but that forces young artists to be better, to work harder, to stand out from the crowd. Edgar Wright created Scott Pilgrim, a movie about being a kung-fu nerd. Final Fantasy has written an album about love through the eyes of a gamer. The lead singer of My Chemical Romance has a book inspired by his love of the X-Men. It is wonderful that any kid with a Mac and editing software can make a film. Now if that kid were only talented enough, he or she could conquer the world.
There will forever be niche interests. Just as Shaun of The Dead becomes required viewing for Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith, forever moving out of obscurity, so a small comics label from Sao Paolo quietly creates a masterpiece in the making. The joy of the nerd comes from the knowledge that there will always be someone out there carving away at their hobbies and looking to get out of the basement.
For more of Owen’s reviews, essays, and other writings, visit his blog, CREATING MONSTERS.
]]>Review by Doc Zane 
Part Aesop Rock, part Hunter S. Thompson, part Art Baltazar, and part Che Guevara, BĀNIMON is a staggering experiment in art and writing. Add the uncommon elements of production that Boris adopts and you’ve got something strange and awesome.
BĀNIMON #3 picks up with Tinker being captured in the desert by revolutionaries who are determined to take over Tesla Mountain. On the mountain, Tuki and his crew are battling a giant robot to the death in the Banisseum and Tesla is as conflicted as ever over his designs and relationship with the great Banigoth.
The BĀNIMON story can be hard to follow for a few reasons- first, the comics are independent and are not printed monthly. Secondly, they seem to be created more with a focus on design than story. Boris is the anti-Brubaker of comics- not to say Savic can’t tell an entertaining story – his focus is just more on the visuals than the intricate details of a plot.
The covers are wonderfully designed. The interior pages are impressive with simple colors (about three colors per page) and solid, clean lines that are reminiscent of manga, or more appropriately, of the street art that influenced Savic. 
All of these things add up to a crazy and fun comic, but more than that, the multiple ways that Savic uses to produce the BĀNIMON story is what really makes it enjoyable. Boris prints full pages of his comic on posters, posts web comic, designs BĀNIMON games, and collaborates with other creators. His most recent collaboration is with fellow creator and friend, Jesse Moore:
“Basically the new posters are part of a collab i’m doing with my friend Jesse, where his character callgrim invades the banimon universe. The format are 11×17 silkscreen posters and we’re going to be alternating writing/drawing duties for each issue, with the idea being to try and stump each other and totally mess up each other’s characters and universe (but in character). Like a little versus collab, really. Should be a ton of fun if we can keep it going.”
Boris’ collaborative efforts don’t end with Moore. Fans are encouraged to frequent the interactive BĀNIMON site to discover different or alternate stories, rewards, etcetera.
There are quite a few comic book collectors who also collect original creator art and pages. Depending on the artist, original art can be in the hundreds and even in the thousands. Boris sells his hand silkscreened original art for as much as $20.00. Very affordable and even better quality that what is printed in the comic. The BĀNIMON comics are books that I enjoy picking up to look at over and over again, but once I’m done, they’re bagged and boarded with the rest and set neatly on the shelf. However, my BĀNIMON posters are hung on the walls of my office where I can always enjoy them.
I don’t know if more stern geeks would enjoy BĀNIMON as much as something like Batman or other serious titles, but readers who like great design, very original art, and rare execution will love the series and the world that Rocket North and Boris Savic have created.
I don’t know what it is about the American West that twins so effortlessly with the supernatural. Perhaps it’s the vast unknowable nature of that frontier, or the savage and violent things that went on there during North America’s early years as a country. Regardless, there is a great tradition of the supernatural western in comics since the earliest days of the medium. Long before the little comic company called Timely changed their name to Marvel comics – and years before Stan Lee sat down to a type-writer at the tender age of 16 – western comic books dominated the market, a strong genre that shifted many copies. But, much like their cinematic counterparts, the western genre of comic books has dwindled from a diamond mine to a few scattered gems. Loveless and Jonah Hex, both published by DC, are fine examples being published today. However they – along with the classic Preacher by Garth Ennis – although channeling a rich vein of grimmer storytelling, lack the adventure and romance of the old school.
The Sixth Gun is a fun book, a virtue that should not be understated, especially in the current bleak market-place that comics have become. Cullen Bunn invents the quintessential hero with a past in Drake, gives him a feminist but begrudging partner in Becky, and sets them off through the land by pitting them against all manner of nasties. The bad guys (so important to this type of storytelling) comes mainly in the form of Hume, a fearsome war-general risen from the grave to reclaim his prized pistols, sentient and soul-sapping six-gun’s that take the essence of those they’ve murdered. There are dead-men’s trees, Thunder-birds attacking, and other great scenes of supernatural peril.
The characters are archetypes. This is well-worn territory, to be sure, but because Bunn includes references to adventures both before and after the events we are seeing, a history and an authenticity is created that makes the world enjoyable to revisit. It also shows confidence that those involved have plenty of other places to take us. The artwork is truly gorgeous, and another element that sets it apart from other comics on the market is the coloring by Bill Crabtree (Invincible). Too long have we seen gritty, muted scenes of the Wild Wild West. Here the sunset’s blaze. It is a refreshing and masterful use of color that, twinned with the artwork, gives the impression you’re watching a well-produced animated show.
Sixth Gun is a romp, a colorful and light affair. I feel it is closest in tone to the first Pirates of the Caribbean flick, occupying a place that is a supernatural adventure saddled (excuse the pun) within a historical period classically associated with exaggerated personalities. In that way, its pleasures and escapes are simple but, executed with such confidence and flair, the book can’t help but impress.
Devoid of the high production values lavished on a major publisher, indie comic books survive on the strength of their ideas and the innovation of their storytelling. Flashy photo-shop effects and sweeping event books are never going to replace a small but well-written book with artwork crafted with love and care. Call me jaded, but in my opinion Guerillas could not satisfy as a book if it rested on the initial hook it promised; the story of a platoon of chimpanzees waging war against the Viet Cong in war-torn Vietnam. To sustain a full-length book, Guerillas had to deliver beyond its simple and hilarious premise. Thankfully, it does.
Brahm Revel writes and draws the first book in the series published by Oni Press, which concerns itself with Private John Francis Clayton’s first tour of duty in Vietnam. The books witty and tongue-in-cheek title is deceptive and misleading. What emerges upon reading is not the trashy, Creature Commandos-inspired romp that one expects. We are given an ultra-violent and – for the most part – realistic war book in the vein of Sgt. Rock comics and the motion picture Platoon. To Revel’s credit, it is actually a serious comic with splashes of humor. For me, the most interesting elements of the comic are satire. Revel brings in issues as weighty as scientific ethics during war-time (with echoes of H.G.Well’s The Island of Dr. Moreau), the human (and simian) price of conflict, and the mistake we make in underestimating primitive beings. It is here that the parallels with the Vietnam War are most effective.
After a shaky start in which we are force-fed Clayton’s back-history as a means of sympathizing with him, Revel really warms up and the story becomes far more engaging. Stand-out moments for me include a horrifying and perfectly-paced dream sequence involving Clayton’s father, a thrilling chase across the African savanna, and a touching, repeated motif involving Dr. Worzle – the platoon’s medic. Unfortunately, the book I felt was building nicely disappointed with an anti-climax that left me unsatisfied. This left an experience that was not rounded, and failed to deliver an ending with the same impact achieved in earlier chapters.
As for the artwork, Revel – who is currently working on the Venture Bros. animated series as storyboard artist – proves a gifted visual storyteller. His brushwork is chunky and expressive, evoking Alex Toth or Darwyn Cooke, particularly in Justice League: The New Frontier. The stark black and white, rippling with grey-tones, is perfect for rendering the silhouettes of the jungle. Much like his writing, it takes a chapter for Revel to warm up, but once he does his work in chapter two and beyond shifts gear from good to outstanding.
In the extras section, we are treated to variant and standard covers, as well as some character designs for the apes which, although not mind-blowing, prove interesting studies and showcase Revel’s skill in simple black and white artwork. A beautifully made book that is enjoyable, while just falling short of being great.
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