Showcase Presents Batman vol. 2 and One Pound Gospel: Hungry for Victory

Here's how this works: I finish reading a comic collection, and I tell you about it, and I try not to go on too long.



The second big Batman Showcase book (~500 pages of black & white reprints) covers all of his appearances in Detective Comics and Batman from September 1965 to December 1966, so it's material very much inspired by, and in turn inspiring, the Adam West Batman show. One of these strips, "Batman's Inescapable Doom Trap," showed up three months later as a TV episode, with the criminal character of Carnado revamped into Zelda the Great, played by Anne Baxter. Since there was a need for more female foes on the TV show, the comics writers created Poison Ivy, who, interestingly, has nothing to do with the "mad botanist obsessed with plants" iteration of the character, and is instead a typical va-va-voom '60s femme fatale. As they got word that Frank Gorshin was not going to return as the Riddler in the second season, they created the Cluemaster, who's exactly like the Riddler, only he wears orange.

Oddly, despite tailoring new, easily-adaptable scripts, the comic writers found their work quickly ignored by the TV people, who never used these or several other new TV-friendly characters. They even pilfered an old Superman foe called the Puzzler to sub for Gorshin instead of using Cluemaster in the second season. Anyway, this is highly recommended if you enjoy the Adam West show, but if you don't, you can safely give this a pass.




This volume compiles a pair of five-part stories from the early 90s; Rumiko Takahashi typically writes and draws a single multi-part One-Pound Gospel story every other year or so. Kosaku's boneheaded inability to pick up on anybody's feelings is a little ponderous, and it reaches a new low in the second story when it's revealed that he had no idea that Sister Angela's vows preclude her ever dating anybody. But the first story, in which an early KO of Kosaku's has been working to keep up with Kosaku's weight to get a rematch, is very good, and there's a two-thirds-splash page of Kosaku drowning his sorrows in a bowl of noodles which is just about the funniest thing I've seen in months. Recommended for Takahashi fans.

(Originally posted September 30, 2007 at hipsterdad's LJ.)

Modesty Blaise: Mister Sun

Here's how this works: I finish reading a comic collection, and I tell you about it, and I try not to go on too long.



The second of Titan's current line of Modesty Blaise reprints, this collects the fourth, fifth and sixth of her serials, including a great story where an old foe devises a nasty revenge and one with a genuinely twisted couple which really must have pushed the envelope for what was acceptable in a 1960s newspaper strip. Eye-popping stuff, and highly recommended.

(Originally posted September 25, 2007 at hipsterdad's LJ.)

Judge Dredd - The Complete Case Files vol. 8

Here's how this works: I finish reading a comic collection, and I tell you about it, and I try not to go on too long.



I've got a soft spot for this collection - it contains stories from the period when I first started reading 2000 AD, with stories including "Dredd Angel," "City of the Damned" and "The Hunter's Club." It also reprints the first three short stories where Dredd starts to have doubts about the justice system, stories which have ramifications in today's stories about mutant rights in the future. John Wagner and Alan Grant have settled into a very comfortable groove during this period, which includes excellent art from Steve Dillon, Ian Gibson and Ron Smith. These are the stories that sold me on the series, so I think any new reader will also enjoy them. Highly recommended!

(Originally posted September 17, 2007 at hipsterdad's LJ.)

Emma vol 2

Here's how this works: I finish reading a comic collection, and I tell you about it, and I try not to go on too long.



I won't swear to be totally hooked by this class-barrier romance comic, but I wanted to read something more recent - most of the Japanese comics I enjoy were originally published better than twenty years ago - and something more grounded in visual realism, without the spit-takes and "super-deforming" you see in lots of the popular stuff. The art is completely superb, with a great deal of attention to period architecture and costume. The story occasionally grates; reader sympathy is naturally not going to be on the side of the aristocracy, and I think William's youngest sister needs her ass kicked. Still, I think this is among the better Japanese offerings available stateside, and certainly the best, as far as I can tell, of CMX's licenses. Recommended for everybody!

(Originally posted September 11, 2007 at hipsterdad's LJ.)

Moomin Vol. 1

Here's how this works: I finish reading a comic collection, and I tell you about it, and I try not to go on too long.



The late Tove Jansson drew a Moomin comic strip, furthering the adventures of her odd family of hippo-shaped trolls, for London's Evening News from 1953-1960. And these strips, the first four collected here, are nuts! The first one is a very loosely-plotted series of bizarre, almost stream-of-consciousness happenings. The other strips are more tightly plotted, with a great sense of escalating, unpredictable weirdness. Absolutely lovable and engaging in every way, this is highly recommended!

(Originally posted Sept. 5 2007 at hipsterdad's LJ.)