Kevin's Favorite Graphic Novels

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Books Reviewed:

 

 

 

By Barlowe and Summers.

These artists create wonderfully realistic images of aliens from well-known sci-fi books. But they let their paintbrushes range from the most plausible to the most wildly implausible and satiric species ever described by crackpot human authors. It's always interesting to compare your own imagination with that of a professional artist who reads the same thing you do with an eye for detail.

 

 

By Phil Foglio

Foglio creates a very detailed and quite humorous milleu of humanity stumbling into space and acting basically like we do here on earth: getting drunk, having sex, and ripping each other off. But the various human and alien heroes express a distinctive philosophy of tolerance and maturity (without giving up on the foolish pleasures mentioned above) that was a pleasure to explore.

 

 

 

Well at some point I had to mention my favorite comic book, and I guess this is the place to do it. The Legion is a relatively obscure comic about a huge group of super-powered young people from various planets in the United Federation of Planets of the 30th Century. It was created shortly after Superboy (and often guest-starred the lad) so it's approaching its 50th year of publication some time soon.

The majority of people who've even heard of this comic pooh-pooh it because they can't get past some aspects of it that are pretty dated, for instance, the way everybody's name seems to end in "Lad," "Lass," "Boy," or "Damsel" ("Matter-Eater Lad" and "Bouncing Boy" being the most often-cited examples). But it's worth noting that over the last ten years they've gone through a lot of effort to modernize the comic.

What I like about it is the camaraderie. They endure tragedy and get into the occasional spat, but most of the time they're a bunch of friends who get together and kick the bad guys' butts. The characters are pretty diverse and unique (actually, several much more well-known characters like Wolverine and Colossus are pretty blatant rip-offs of Legionnaires), and after so many years I just feel like I grew up with these people.

As far as the writing and the artwork, well, they've had their share of stinkers of course, but with nearly a half-century under their belts, I have no difficulty citing periods of excellence on both accounts.

This comic book is basically the first place I was ever published; over the last fifteen years, I've had maybe five or six letters printed in their letter-column. Quite a kick, actually, to know that I can wander into any comic store across the country and if I dig hard enough, find something with my name printed on it.

"Wildfire", the dude in the orange and red, being my favorite hero...




Wildfire was a human named Drake Burroughs, who suffered a radiation accident (as so many comic characters do). He was transformed into a being made of pure energy. He can unleash that energy as devastating blasts of heat or radiation. On the other hand, without the orange-and-red containment suit, he is energy without any physical, tangible form -- a formless, weightless "ghost," just an invisible cloud of radioactive particles.

 

Wildfire is a bit of a hothead... and he's always the last person off the battlefield when everyone else retreats. Often a bit reckless, on the other hand he has this spirit of pluck and determination, in the face of hopeless odds, which I really admire.

 

 

 

By Harlan Ellison and Jacek Yerka.

This amazing book paired the renowned American sci-fi and fantasy author with a relatively obscure Polish surrealist painter. Yerka would paint a painting, and Ellison would then write a one-page story inspired by the image. It turned out to be some pretty hot stuff, both visually and narratively. It's a little expensive and hard-to-find, but well worth the effort.

 

 

 

By Alan Moore.

This book put comics on the map as a literary form. The plot is an exercise in what-if-superheroes-were-really-real, but it's filled with so many amazing little humanistic subplots and back-story details that you really feel like you've lived a lifetime on this alternate Earth by the time you're through.

The exquisitely engineered artwork is a kind of homage to the four-color Dick Tracy: simple enough to convey the most idealistic truisms, yet complicated enough to make you feel like you've sifted your fingers through all the alien innards of an extraterrestrial corpse. Everyone who knows about this book/series agrees it's a classic.

 

 

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