Midnight, Mass.: Here There Be Monsters #1

January 27, 2004

Quick Rating: Great
Title: Arturo

The Kadmons are back… and so are the monsters!

Writer: John Rozum
Art: Paul Lee
Colors: Sherri Van Valkenburgh
Letters: Janice Chiang
Editor: Zachary Rau
Cover Art: Tomer Hakuna
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo

For those of you who didn’t read the first Midnight, Mass. miniseries… boy, did you miss out. But don’t worry, I’ll catch you up. Adam and Julia Kadmon are monster-hunters, paranormal investigators and celebrities. This husband and wife team are world-famous for killing monsters, exorcising evil spirits and generally making the world safe for normal people like you and me. It’s like Ghostbusters crossed with The X-Files.

Fortunately, the first issue of this new six-issue run does not depend on the first miniseries at all — I’ve already given you all you should need to pick up this first issue in which a new threat arises. When we’re kids, we’re all afraid of the monsters that crawl out from beneath our beds in the dead of night. In the world of the Kadmons, the monsters are real, they’re mad, and they want to come out and play.

Rozum has created some really great characters in this series. In addition to the menacing (yet darkly humorous) monsters, Adam and Julia are incredibly surprising in their sheer normalcy, considering their unusual life. For some reason it has become very rare in comic books to see a husband and wife who genuinely, unabashedly love each other. They may fight and bicker, they may disagree sometimes like all couples do, but at the core they compliment and complete one another. It’s incredibly refreshing to see a story about a married couple where the meat of the conflict doesn’t come from one another, but from the outside forces that create the bulk of the story.

And let’s not forget the monsters — Paul Lee has designed some seriously creepy creatures here, but he hasn’t lost any of the wit and charm that Rozum puts into his scripts. Many of the monster designs look like the sort of thing a kid would draw or the kind of monster you would see in a child’s cartoon, except magnified and made more horrific. They are, to be blunt, ugly, ugly creatures, and still a whole lot of fun.

“Fun,” in fact, is probably the best single word to describe Midnight, Mass. It’s the Vertigo title that tackles the same demons and creatures that most Vertigo titles do, but it does it with a lot of wit and a self-aware smirk the entire time. Now if only DC would put out a trade paperback of the first series, you guys could catch up and see what I’m talking about. But don’t let that keep you from giving this book a try.

Rating: 9/10

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger-The Little Sisters of Eluria #3

March 14, 2011

Creative Director: Stephen King
Plot and Consultation: Robin Furth
Script: Peter David
Art: Luke Ross & Richard Isanove
Letterer: Rus Wooton
Cover: Luke Ross & Richard Isanove
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Roland of Gilead has been wounded in battle with a mob of Slow Mutants and taken in by a group of terrifying “Sisters,” who have been both nursing his injuries and slowly drugging him. As he rests in their tender care, he talks to a survivor of a previous attack by the Slow Mutants and learns more about his situation.

While Furth and David have, for the most part, done a good job taking Stephen King’s novella and transforming it into comic book form, this issue underscores one of the problems in translating stories from one medium to another. John’s story, about how his brother and companions died and he came to be in the clutches of the Mutants, doesn’t take up a lot of time in the original novella. The writers have chosen to devote almost an entire issue to the flashback, though, which has the unintended consequence of grinding the story to a halt. While John’s tale is interesting, it’s not integral to Roland’s quest or even, really, to his encounter with the Little Sisters, and this the issue feels somewhat superfluous.

The artwork helps considerably here. Luke Ross continues to grace us with a very clean, powerful-looking line art which Richard Isanove brings to life in a way that very much demonstrates that comic book coloring is, indeed, its own artform. The pages of this book are just fantastic, combining all the greatest elements of horror storytelling with the color palette and mood of a western.

This issue isn’t bad, but it’s unnecessary, and in some cases, that may even be a worse thing. Hopefully, the final two issues will pick up.

Rating: 7/10

Muppet Robin Hood #1

June 29, 2009
Muppet Robin Hood #1 (Boom! Kids)
By Tim Beedle, Armand Villavert Jr. & Shelli Paroline

The Boom!/Disney deal has produced some darn good comics so far, including The Muppet Show and a pair of Pixar properties. This second Muppet comic isn’t quite as good as the first, but it’s still strong. Following in the footsteps of films like Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island, Tim Beedle casts the Muppets as Robin Hood, his Merry Men, and the villainous Sheriff of Nottingham for this production. Both the writing and art are good, but not great. The story flows well, but a lot of the jokes feel a bit overdone (there’s a gag with Sam the Eagle almost word-for-word pulled from Christmas Carol). The artwork is technically more on-model than the other comic, but it’s a little stiff. It reminds me of how Muppets in use always look more lifelike than still photos of the Muppets. But lest it sound like I didn’t like this book, there is a lot of good stuff here as well — a lot of really funny jokes with Kermit and Robin, unexpected casting with Little John and Will Scarlet, a great bit with the Swedish Chef and Lew Zeland, and so on. This is a good book, and Muppet fans will definitely enjoy it. There’s just a little room for improvement, that’s all.
Rating: 7/10