Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This week, Bennett reviews some recent comic releases that he enjoyed.We (and by "we" I of course mean "me") tend to focus entirely too much on the negative and while I usually avoid doing reviews, here's some recent items that I really enjoyed.
Truly we live in the Golden Age of both comic book collections and books about comic books and a larger number of the really good ones come from Craig Yoe. Just off the top of my head there's Boody: The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers, Dan DeCarlo's Jetta and of course Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman Co-Creator Joe Shuster. Well you can add another to that list; The Golden Age Collection of Klassic Krazy Kool Kids Komics just out from IDW.
There's a lot more to do it than mesmerizing design work--for one thing it's a remarkably sturdy book; I haven't field tested it with actual kids or anything but I'm bettering it can tolerate a lot of rough handling by sticky young hands. I'm don't delude myself; this volume was primarily intended for hardcore comic book appreciators of a certain age but I remain convinced kids will likewise go bonkers over the contents. As I've written too often kids tend to avoid things they perceive as being "old" like the plague but I think they'll find the stories in this collection to be remarkably timeless.
Even semi-professional know-it-alls such as myself can have gaps in his comic book knowledge and there's plenty of wonderful stuff I've never even heard of from creators as diverse as Jules Feiffer, Steve Ditko, Frank Frazetta, Dan DeCarlo, Wally Wood and Milt Gross. And even when I come across stuff I do know about its stories I've never seen before, like the Peterkin Pottle story from John Stanley I've been unable to find or the new to me Lockjaw the Alligator tale by Jack Kirby. To refer to an anthology like this as a "treasure trove" would be to use the hoariest of clich's, but it would also be 100%. Something like this isn't destined to be cooled appreciated then gather dust on shelf; it's means to be read and reread.
Hawkeye and Mockingbird #1 was a revelation; it featured characters I don't really care about and a story by a writer (Jim McCann) and artist (David Lopez) I've never heard of yet managed to be both a lot of lively fun and awfully pretty. If there's a misstep it's dredging up again the whole 'Mockingbird got drugged and raped by Silver Age masked cowboy Night Rider' thing, especially now that (to "spoil" the obvious ending for you) a female ancestor has been possessed by his spirit and wants to take up where he left off.*
I confess I don't enjoy superhero comics the way I used and while in the past I've blamed the content of current comics to be fair I'm at least partially to blame. Once you've read as many of them as I have it's kind of hard to excited by the same old stuff but I hope that my never grows so cold that I'll reject out of turn well done comics featuring teams of teenage superheroes. And last week we got two of them.
Avengers Academy #1 features a bunch of new heroes most of whom all but dare you to like them in confined quarters but if that sort of dramatic pressure cooker wasn't enjoyable MTV and VH1 would go out of business. It's a solid first issue featuring art by Mike McKone whose work just seems to get better and better. I never expected to be able to read a new comic titled Young Allies #1: this is more of a standard super team book than Avengers Academy yet Scott McKeever manages to dodge most of the clich's inherent in a superhero team vs. supervillain team dust up. Plus David Baldeon is yet another artist that I've never heard of who produces some very solid art.
* This sort of disturbing paranormal gender confusion happens with an alarming frequency in superhero comics. The last time I was in Super-Fly Comics & Games co-owner Tad Cleveland was going through a box of recently acquired back issues and just gotten to the run of Green Lantern that introduced Carol Ferris' male persona Predator. I proceeded to explain the plot as he sped read the comics with increasing disbelief.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
