My favorite comic growing up in the eighties was THE SHADOW (sorry PETER PORKER - you are a very close second). Howard Chaykin's Shadow was a breath of fresh air to me and I gobbled up every frame of that miniseries. Chaykin didn't go onto the regular series when it launched, leaving me to look around for other comics Chaykin had done.

I didn't have to look very far. I found AMERICAN FLAGG and was instantly launched into gun violence and big ol' jubblies from page one. Taking place in our now not-so-distant-future (2031), Rueben Flagg is a former actor turned 'supercop' when he joins up with The Plex. The world has gone to hell and the Plex is part of the solution to get American back on track. Of course that's a lot of bull and Flagg instantly sees the rampant corruption spew forth in the organization while the public is forced to watch horribly violent reality television shows with subliminal messages attached.

Basically, it's a lot like our world today.

Dynamite and Titan have done an amazing job bringing these collections together. The first volume collects issues 1-6 (with a "rarely seen" prologue included) while the second collects 7-14 with a BRAND NEW story by Chaykin. The new story is the icing on the cake - it's 12 pages of amazing glory. Chaykin has surely upped his game since the eighties and the legend has never looked better then his new story does here.

Can't take away from the rest of the graphic novel(s), though. Littered with sketches and pin-ups, these volumes are wonderful reprints of the original series. The colors stand up nicely and are reprinted on very heavy paper. The story, which may have been a bit over the top in the early eighties, really rings true in today's modern culture. Chaykin, like all great writers, was not just writing a story but actually predicting the future.

THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION is a must buy - not just for fans of Flagg or Chaykin. AMERICAN FLAGG is a classic American comic book that helped redefine independent comics in the eighties and still continues to shove it right in your face today.

Ryan McLelland has worked in movies and comics journalism for the past several years before joining the @$$holes here at AICN. Ryan’s comic work has already graced comic shelves with Arcana’s PHILLY, WISE INTELLIGENCE, UPTOWN GIRL, and THE SENTINELS ANTHOLOGY. He rarely updates his blog but when he does it can be read at www.eyewannabe.com. The first issue of his new WISE INTELLIGENCE miniseries can be found here.

TORCHWOOD: RIFT WAR

Story by: Simon Furman, Paul Grist, Ian Edginton, Brian Williamson
Art by: Paul Grist, SL Gallant, D’Israeli, Brian Williamson
Published by: Titan Books
Reviewed by: Baytor

For two years now, TORCHWOOD has been the less interesting sister-program of DOCTOR WHO. It’s not bad exactly, but it lacks the purity of formula that has allowed the Doctor to cross generations. And, of course, it gets its own magazine (which I think is required by law of all science fiction shows), which publishes a 10-page comic story every issue. This is the less than stellar collection of their first major story-line: RIFT WAR.

Much of this volume is illustrated by Paul Grist of JACK STAFF fame. To say that he fails to capture the likenesses of the TORCHWOOD cast would be the understatement of the century. He is, however, the only artist of the four that can make each character instantly recognizable without resorting the worst sort of photo-referencing and it ends up being a shame that its not his artwork throughout.

Storywise, the whole thing is a mess. It starts off with the Harrowkind (who look vaguely Scottish, but without the fashion sense) invading Cardiff and making off with Torchwood HQ, along with resident Asian cutie Toshiko, where she meets the mysterious alien, Vox. After helping her get back, he begins acting in a strange manner that instantly foreshadows the obvious future plot developments. Along the way, we get a lot of one-shot adventures where they have to raise giant babies, battle genetically engineered dinosaurs, and team up with the 1918 version of the team to stop bad guys at Stonehenge, before the plot twist absolutely everyone will see coming finally happens.

I know I’m being overly harsh on the book. It’s not dreadful and it’s perfectly readable (apart from the times where you can’t tell the Welsh girl apart from the Japanese girl), but it always drives me a little nuts to see a strip like this take on extended story arcs, instead of focusing on shorter stories. The magazine only has 10 pages a month to tell their stories and telling a 10-part epic story just highlights how clunky the format is for longer stories… especially when you have trouble keeping an artist or writer for more than three installments.

I ended up enjoying the one-part “Jetsam” story more than the main story, despite some of the most lifeless photo-referenced work I’ve ever seen. The Torchwood crew discovers an advanced piece of alien hardware, which is accidentally bonded with Tosh and she becomes embroiled in an ancient conflict. It is by no means a great story, but it at least takes better advantage of the format than its 10-part bookmate.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE WORLD OF TOMORROW? OGN

Written and drawn by Brian Fies
Published by Abrams ComicArts
Reviewed by Stones Throw

There’s a great Robert Crumb cartoon that follows one patch of land in a series of panels from pre-colonisation up to the present day, showing us houses getting built, roads and automobiles appearing, telephone wires and telegraph poles cropping up and beginning to crowd the panel. The last panel is captioned something like, “What will happen next?” Brian Fies is asking a similar question in this new graphic novel. The basic premise is that, beginning with the New York World’s Fair in 1939, it traces the history of technological development and exploration in the twentieth century through the Second World War, the Cold War, the Moon landings, finally asking the poignant titular question, Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?

Communicating our collective loss of hope and optimism are two characters, “Pop” and “Buddy”, who, in an intended commentary on comic book chronologies, age veeryy slloowwlyy over the decade-long intervals in which the book unfolds. Meanwhile, as a foil to the main plotline, each chapter is followed by a pastiche of comic books of the day, neatly printed on different paper stock, beginning with a Golden Age adventure given away free at the World’s Fair, all the way up to a late-Sixties Denny O’Neill style story in which a conscience-stricken Captain Crater walks away from his space-faring identity.

Seems like a fair idea and a clever structure to shape it around. Fies is probably right that, as a whole, we’ve lost imagination both in comic books and the scientific world that inspired them (though I would venture to say that’s more of a result of having done it in the first place--once man has got to the Moon there’s not a lot further he can go.) Unfortunately I found his book lacking in the same qualities of imagination and ambition that he’s wishing we still had.

The first problem is the art. Fies won an Eisner award for his dot.comic MOM’S CANCER in 2005. This book probably demonstrates the problems in stepping up from the web to published works. His art has a bold and expressive cartoony style that probably works great when reading it online but is wholly lacking in more subtle detail and depth, leaving the many splash pages looking pretty empty. More importantly, the simplistic cartooning means each era, from 1940s to 1970s, looks pretty much the same, so, unlike the Crumb cartoon, we don’t get to see that kind of visual progression and accumulation I’d have thought integral to the book. While numerous chunks of text tell us about the amazing technological progress over the years, the book isn’t able to express that facet of the story through images.

Weirdly, it seems Fies isn’t even trying to do that. Not only does he draw in such a simplistic style but locations are often backgrounded in a monochrome palette while only Pop and Buddy, the only two characters with dialogue for almost the whole book, get fully colored. The decision to have the archetypal father and son hardly age until the final chapter, set in the future, means we don’t even get to see much character development. “Buddy”’s eternal one-note is upbeat, with a brief key change to moody teen in the middle. Pop remains stoic and paternal but we don’t get to see him age and become an old man in a rapidly-changing world. How would a WWII veteran react to the atom bomb or Apollo 11? And for that matter, where the heck is the mother? Fies doesn’t say.

Pop and Buddy are evidently intended to represent all of us, which is why they’re also present as Captain Crater and Cosmic Kid. But the focus on two very generic characters limits the book and sticks it in limbo just as much as the Silver Age comic books it references, where it should be aiming for a sense of change and propulsion, even if that is curtailed, as Fies suggests. The meat of the book is wordy, heavily researched captions like:

“Shockley, Brattain, and Bardeen invented the semiconducting transistor in 1947. Their breakthrough amplified electrical signals, provided the on/off binary switching at the heart of every computer, and replaced the larger, hotter, more expensive, and less reliable vacuum tube.”

Or:

“From the days of the earliest vacuum-tube calculators and war-time code breakers through to transistors and integrated circuits, the speed and power of electronics soared while their size and price plummeted.”

Yeah, I skimmed over them, too. But given the absence of well-rounded characters and over-reliance on expository, factual captions, what do you have left? A pretty tired chronology from hope in 1939 to uncertainty circa Watergate and Viet Nam, with a saccharine “reach for the stars” conclusion tacked on the end, that’s what.

There were two scenes that I found of greater interest. The first, which recalled WATCHMEN, showed the kid working on a model rocket ship in his room on VJ Day as President Truman announces Japan’s unconditional surrender. The second was perhaps a little cliché but powerful nonetheless as, in 1955, Pop and Buddy work on a bomb shelter in their basement, neither calling any attention to what it is. What’s Fies saying with these two sequences? That scientific progress isn’t always beneficial? That the dream of the World’s Fair in 1939 has become corrupted? You wouldn’t get any sense of it from the conclusion, which blandly asserts we should all “build the world of tomorrow”.

In the end, I felt the book struck an unsatisfactory balance between scientific history and personal story, achieving success in neither. The title, like Neil Gaiman’s “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?”, references Alan Moore’s Superman farewell, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE MAN OF TOMORROW?, and, while it might be an unfair comparison, that book was a better examination of national loss of innocence through the archetype of Superman. And WATCHMEN dealt more intelligently and honestly with nuclear paranoia and science in comic books.

THE WAKING Limited Series
advance review!

Writer: Raven Gregory
Artist: Vic Drujiniu
(Soon to be) Published by: Zenescope Entertainment
Advance review by: BottleImp

One of the best things that comic books have going for them today is the sheer diversity of subject matter. Sure, superheroes still dominate the market, but other genres now have a much healthier representation on the racks than ever would have been possible in decades past. Science Fiction, Western, Biographical, Humor, Mystery/Thriller, Crime, Horror—you get the picture. I was fortunate enough to be able to see a preview of an upcoming limited series that combines the latter two genres—Crime and Horror—in Zenoscope’s THE WAKING.

In a nutshell, we have CSI meets NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. THE WAKING follows four police officers as they discover that the victims of their latest cases are beginning to get up, walk around, and hunt down those responsible for their deaths. Meanwhile there’s a mysterious stranger who seems to be linked to the bizarre re-animations. Is he the cause of the zombies, or does he hold the key to putting an end to them? Well, I only got to see the lettered and penciled pages of the first three issues, so I have no idea how it all ends. But this series has a hell of a good start.

Although I mentioned NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, the only characteristic that THE WAKING shares with Romero’s work is that both have corpses walking around when they should be lying in graves like respectable worm-farms. Whereas NIGHT’s zombies were brainless, aimless, shuffling flesh-eating automatons, WAKING’s zombies are more directed, like the zombie legends of old when the undead were raised for specific tasks. These corpses have a purpose: revenge. I’m glad that Gregory came up with something new to do with the zombie genre rather than the typical “band of strangers join together to survive” kind of story that has become the go-to when it comes to a living dead kinda storyline. What with Marvel’s seemingly endless parade of zombie books, Kirkman’s WALKING DEAD and a slew of other horror books that are cluttering the racks, it’s refreshing to see a slightly skewed premise of vengeance from beyond the grave to set this book apart.

Drujiniu’s art goes a long way towards blending the horror elements with the real-world, police investigation aspect of the series. Prudes beware, however—there are several lovingly-rendered drawings of nude women with large, shapely breasts found within these pages. They are so lovingly rendered, in fact, that they threaten to push THE WAKING into the realm of being a titty book—except for the fact that Drujiniu renders EVERYTHING with just as much painstaking, loving detail, whether it be a set of Double-Ds, the interior of a police cruiser, or a maggot-encrusted corpse beating the shit out of the owner of said Double-Ds. The top-notch visuals enhance both the sense of the concrete, true-to-life environments and thrill of watching a late-night horror flick on Skinemax.

I only have one nit to pick with the series so far, and it’s a problem that seems to be characteristic of the crime genre whether represented in print or on film or television. Gregory’s four officers, though distinct visually and given different voices, still feel sketched rather than realized. Like I said, it’s a problem that I’ve noticed with a lot of mysteries, when the bulk of importance is naturally given to the plot rather than the personalities of the cast. After all, it’s the story, the mystery that’s really going to be the hook that draws people in; it’s those dangling clues that make the reader (or viewer) want to stay ‘til the end to find out what happens. And so it is with THE WAKING—I would like it if the cops were a little more fully realized, but in the end I wholeheartedly admit that the real meat of the series is finding out why those pesky bodies won’t stay deceased.

All in all, THE WAKING looks to be a fun read—look for it to crawl onto the comic racks within the next few months.

When released from his Bottle, the Imp takes the form of Stephen Andrade, an artist/illustrator/pirate monkey painter from the Northeast. You can see some of his artwork here. He’s given up comics more times than he can remember. But every time he thinks he's out, they pull him back in.

THE COMPLEAT NEXT MEN VOL. 1

Written and Illustrated by: John Byrne
Published by: IDW Publishing
Reviewed by: superhero

John Byrne gets a bad rap. Okay, sure, he’s said some pretty boneheaded things in the past and his art style may seem to be a bit dated but I stand by that statement. I think Byrne gets a bad rap.

I expected to be disappointed with this book. I actually have all of the original issues. I bought and read JOHN BYRNE’S NEXT MEN when they originally came out in the early to mid 90’s. I remember really enjoying the series back then. I also remember feeling that it was Byrne’s last hurrah. After NEXT MEN I felt my appreciation for Byrne’s artwork diminish. Actually, I think it was during the NEXT MEN where I began to see the cracks in Byrne’s armor. Up until then Byrne could do no wrong. He was pretty much infallible to me in my teens and early twenties. But after a while I started growing up a bit, discovering new and different types of comics and art styles, and I soon found out that the luster of the “Byrne style” had worn off and several years ago I just about out and out had a hard time buying anything he’d attached his name to, not just because of his art but because of his writing. To me, somewhere around the mid-nineties was where Byrne’s needle got stuck on the record of his own ego and refused to move…so I moved on away from him. Off to discover newer pastures.

Which is why I found this volume so refreshing. Again, I thought I was going to be disappointed by this volume. It’s hard revisiting old comic work that you enjoyed when you were younger. Flaws that weren’t evident on that first, naïve read become glaring and jarring to older, more jaded eyes. That wasn’t the case with my re-read of JBNM. If anything this re-visit to Byrne-land re-ignited my appreciation for Byrne as a strong visual storyteller and a powerful cartoonist. This particular volume presents the beginning of the NEXT MEN saga in pure black and white leaving Byrne’s artwork untouched by a color palette and it’s a powerful sight. Byrne’s artwork in pure black and white is striking on the page. It’s almost as if the lack of color adds strength to Byrne’s style. But what’s most impressive here is Byrne’s storytelling ability. NEXT MEN was very atypical for the comic books of its time. While it is a take on the superhero/sci-fi genre it’s very different from what other books were doing at the time. See, for the most part, there’s not a lot of action. It’s very much an early precursor to what Bendis and co. have made superhero books into today, which is more talky talk than action. But what Byrne succeeds in with this book is making a story that is mostly dialog and character interaction far more entertaining than one would expect it to be. NEXT MEN is a compelling and interesting read from start to finish and it’s a great display of what I’m realizing in my later years was Byrne’s real strength: storytelling.

Now before I get carried away let me just say that it’s also full of many of Byrne’s weaknesses. Stuff like re-using old plot devices from other stories (a segment during the Russian story arc lifts directly from Byrne’s STARBRAND run), dialog that is a bit too corny to take seriously, and some slightly rushed looking artwork. But the thing is…Byrne did this book all on his own. He wrote, penciled, and inked the whole thing by himself. How many comic creators do you know that could do that today and get their book out on time month to month? Not many. So I’m willing to forgive a couple of missteps here and there and accept NEXT MEN for a slightly flawed but highly enjoyable read. I’ll be getting the next volume ASAP. Hell, I may even buy the oversized hardcovers. I liked it that much.

Discovered as a babe in an abandoned comic book storage box and bitten by a radioactive comic fan when he was a teenager, superhero is actually not-so mild mannered sometime designer & cartoonist, Kristian Horn of Los Angeles, California. He's been an @$$hole for three years. Some of his work can be seen at www.kristianhorn.com.

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY #1

Writer: Chuck Dixon
Art: Esteve Polls
Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment
Reviewer: Mr. Pasty

Thanks to Dynamite Entertainment, Sergio Leone’s THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY has found its way onto the pages of a comic book. And since everyone on this side of the culture warp has already seen what is largely considered THE GODFATHER of Spaghetti Westerns, Dynamite has attempted a reimagining of the Leone Universe. Folks, this is one creative license that needs to be revoked.

When I was 18, I had a friend throw up in my car after a hard night of drinking. Unfortunately he vomited on my copy of SWAMP THING #121. I tried to read it a few days later, but the pages were a kaleidoscope of ugly colors and it just flat out reeked of bile. Defeated, I threw the book out and called it a loss. Reading THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY has reminded me of that incident.

This is not Dynamite’s first foray into Leone’s beloved westerns. A few weeks ago I reviewed THE MAN WITH NO NAME because it also focused on the exploits of Blondie and Tuco. I immediately noticed that both books have a lot in common. Kind of like the way each one left me with the facial expression of a Nazi staring into the Ark of the Covenant.

The most frustrating part of this book is that there is no singular egregious sin that makes me want to throw my arms up in disgust. Looking back, I kind of wish there was; maybe it could give have given this book a little life. Nothing happens here. And when it does, it’s either predictable (to the point of absurdity) or it just makes no sense. For instance, the book opens with dark, moody panels and then OH MY GOD IT’S A TRAIN HEIST! IN THE WILD WEST! The train heist has become the accidental kick to the groin in “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” You know why it’s there – and you also know you deserve better.

People get shot dead in this story every time they do something wrong. Yet when Blondie tries to wax one of the main antagonists and fails, they simply beat the shit out of him and steal his horse. Why? Because if they killed him, there would be no issue #2. This is not storytelling. This is painting by numbers. I get the sense that the people behind this book really think they’re achieving, but their adherence to the standards set by Leone has failed them. The brilliance of the original film does not transition well to the pages of comic books, where a reader cannot hear foreboding music or the sound of far-away gunshots. Nor can they filter out the personality of the main character, who often has little to no dialogue – especially within illustrations so dark and clumsily drawn as these.

I’m sure there was a day when someone was reading a comic book and THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY came on TV. It must have been like the time that guy with the chocolate ran into the guy with the peanut butter. Unfortunately this is not Reeces, this is feces. I don’t know if this series will ever work, because Dynamite has assembled a story around the franchise and not the other way around. That leaves me with the impression that it’s not about the comic, it’s about the money. It always is, I suppose – even in the book. About midway through the story, a prostitute offers to fuck someone for two dollars. That’s not a bad deal. THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY fucked me and I had to pay $3.50.

Final word: Angel Eyes would have put a pillow over this book and shot it in the face.

Web heads who can’t get enough of Mr. Pasty’s word vomit are encouraged to see him operate as Nostradumbass over at MMAmania.com. Love, hate and Mafia Wars requests should be directed here.

BATTLEFIELDS VOL. 1: THE NIGHT WITCHES

Story by: Garth Ennis
Art by: Russ Braun
Published by: Dynamite Entertainment
Reviewed by: Baytor

There is no one in comics today who does better war stories than Garth Ennis. I don’t care how you feel about his super-hero comics, his ultra-violence, or his tendency for inappropriate humor. He flat-out does not have an equal when it comes to war comics. You have to go back to the 50s and Harvey Kurtzman, who is the undisputed champ of war story shorts, to find a proper challenger.

I think the most important aspect of a war comic is empathy. You don’t have to agree with the war or the country fighting it, but you have to be able to put yourself in the place of the common soldier who is expected to travel to distant lands and submit himself to the horrors of combat. You have to be able to capture the quiet moments, the rowdy moments, and the terrifying moments. Garth Ennis can do all of things effortlessly.

Which is not to say you have to like all soldiers. They’re people, not wind-up heroes that we take out to idolize on Memorial Day. The incompetent at the Dunkin’ Donuts that can’t get your coffee order right will probably be no better if you put a gun in his hand, nor will the petty tyrant of a boss if he actually gets his hands on the power of life and death. But a good war story has to understand such people and empathize with them more often than not, even if that person isn’t the most pleasant of people.

THE NIGHT WITCHES tells the story of a remarkable bit of nearly forgotten history, when Russian female pilots took to the air in obsolete bi-planes against the invading Germans. Even more remarkable is the pilots had to turn off their engines during attacks (to avoid giving away their position in the slow-moving planes) and hope they’d start back up after they dropped their bombs. In lesser hands, this would either have been an inspirational story of how female pilots are the equal of their male counterparts or a condemnation of the horrendous sexual harassment they received at the hands of men. Ennis takes all of that as a matter of fact and makes it about the people.

When they first arrive, the women are treated as a novelty act and the men are more interested in the size of their tits than their skill as pilots, and the commander’s reaction to finding out that our heroine, Anna Kharkova, needs to sit on a cushion to see out of the plane is priceless. But they soon prove their worth and are, more or less, accepted.

Running parallel to this story is the tale of a kind-hearted German soldier resisting the teaching of his monstrous commander. Early on, this is a distraction from the far more interesting Russian story, but it’s empathy that salvages it. As the story progresses, we discover that the monstrous commander is, in his own sick, twisted way, trying to save the lives of his charges by purging them of whatever warm fuzzy feelings they may have toward the Russian people, who most certainly do not return such feelings. By the time the two stories merge, the importance of setting up these characters becomes clear and makes the conclusion fairly surprising.

NIGHT WITCHES isn’t quite as satisfying as the suite of war stories Ennis published through Vertigo a few years back, but mostly because you can feel the repetition creeping into the formula. A failing of war stories is that they’re variations on a theme and fresh perspectives are few and far between, but Ennis’ talent at characterization and his ability to find less-traveled venues serves him well.

YOKAI DOCTOR VOL.1

By Yuki Sato
Released by Del Ray
Reviewer: Scott Green

I recently half-joked on twitter a speculation positing: now that ghosts of the J-Horror variety (RING, GRUDGE) are buried, zombies have run their course and vampires are in the midst of resurgence in popularity, yokai are on deck to be the next it supernatural entity. My tongue-in-cheek contention was that after YOKAI ATTACK, YOKAIDEN, USAGI YOJIMBO: YOKAI, KAZUO UMEZU’S CAT EYED BOY and OSAMU TEZUKA'S DORORO, the horror juggernaut has already gotten the ball rolling in the anime/manga realm. Over exaggeration aside, it is gratifying to see that North American readers are now being afforded plenty of opportunities to indulge in this spirited Japanese export.

From the preface of HIROKO YODA and Matt Alt's YOKAI ATTACK, "written with the Japanese characters for 'other-worldly' and 'weird,' the word 'yokai' has typically been translated in a great many ways, from 'demon' to 'ghost' to 'goblin' to 'specter' - all of which are about as imprecise an un-evocative as translating 'samurai' as 'Japanese warrior," or 'sushi' as 'raw fish on rice.' Yokai are yokai." It's a class of supernatural creatures that encompasses shape changing foxes, tsukumonogami - artifacts that come to life after existing 100 years, kappa - bowl headed, turtle-men water imps, urban legends like the kuchisake anna - "slit mouthed woman," and many more subjects of folktales and nightmares.

A good yokai story breathes life into a murky corner of perception. It takes the fright of a dark corner, the wonder of a natural phenomenon, some metaphor or word play that sticks in the mind and gives it semi-human form. It might take some ferreting out, but one of the fascinating attributes of yokai is that they generally trace back to some mental hang-up like an unexplainable sound one hears wondering the woods or a coincidence in words and names.

It's the metaphorical angle that serves YOKAI DOCTOR well. Published in Magazine Special, then Weekly Shonen Magazine, YOKAI DOCTOR/Yôkai no Oisha-san takes the teen concerns that constitute the starting point of a Weekly Shonen Magazine manga, like LOVE HINA, GETBACKERS, GREAT TEACHER ONIZUKA, AIR GEAR and so on, and then embodies the spirit of that issue in a yokai creature, such as a tiny wild haired, horned oni that acts like an unexpressive school crush or a bristly tsuchinoko that lashes out in its lost confusion.

The titular Yokai Doctor is Kuro Gokokuji, a strange, unsocialized outsider. When the bespectacled, dark unkempt weirdo isn't walking down the school's hallway with his eyes in a book or sleeping through the day's schedule, he's inappropriately expressing his interest in female peers (grabbing chests, fondling panties; the familiar, over-used, rarely funny manga gags). Growing up under bizarre circumstances, outside the human world, Kuro's mother's death at the hands of human caused the boy to reject our species and devote himself to curing the ailments of the supernatural. Kuro's partner in supernatural problem solving, and the manga's more normality rooted point of view is Kotoko Kasuga, an energetic girl who can see yokai, descended from a professional exorcist , who never the less does not no know much about the beings. And, like Kuro, Kotoko was shaped by a tormented childhood, but more mundane in her case, being bulled for her strangeness.

The characteristics of these two, such as the expertise and grabbyness of Kuro and the flightiness of Kotoko, are indicative of YOKAI DOCTOR's shonen/male audience anthology background. However, the premise's tie between horror and teenage concerns, and attempt to balance the two characters positions the manga as the kind of shounen that hopes to appeal to readers of both genders.

In its transition from Magazine Special to Weekly Shonen Magazine, Yokai tells the same sample exercise twice, once from Kotoko's perspective, and once from Kuro's. Kuro accompanies Kotoko as misguidedly she leads a group of students into the woods in a yokai hunting mission. The nameless extras get encased in a gelatinous cube. A kappa's hulking mass of scales crashes out of the trees and threatens to eat Kotoko. Fortunately, Kuro is able to net the water spirit, diagnose that it's ill and treat the beasty. Rounded out by other, similar stories, the manga's first volume suggests that the series will be made up of these situation-horrors that stand on their own, except for developing a relationship between the two principals.

Yuki Sato is able to capitalize on still images. Small, sketchy bits add humorous notes to Kuro's relationship with the yokai, as in a small panel picturing a fox-woman and tanuki-man in semi-human guise bribing school officials with glamored money to accept their "son" as a student. Scenes within that school fit unexceptionably into the masses of high school manga, which is a reasonable place for the normality aspect of the manga.

There's a crucial scene in yokai stories in which the protagonists stumble onto a forest glen packed with a congress of yokai. It's in CAT EYED BOY, DORORO, and plenty of others, with animated heads floating in the air or rolling on the ground, animal-human hybrids who may be beckoning cat girls or ferociously judgmental crow-men tengu, cannibal hags, prosperity house spirits and other representatives of a psychedelic host. This is what Yuki Sato excels at. The dark inks of the forest gathering scene gives it the spooky look of a woodblock print come to life. The warty, hairy kappa, with its asymmetry accentuated by one of its frog's eyes permanently squinted, similarly sells the yokai's supernatural presence. At the same time, Yuki Sato pulls off some entertaining mixes of cuteness with oddity. The cute side could be compared to POKEMON, but many of those pocket monsters were also inspired by yokai. Yuki Sato just accentuates the split between kawii and outlandish aspects, such as a pint sized futakuchi onna woman, who looks like a soft, cartooned figure, who then unfurls a tongue that goes down a hallway from the BACK of her head.

These graphical elements point to the conceptual strengths of YOKAI DOCTOR. The beings make for impressive embodiments of teenage emotional turmoil, and the creatures are able to bear the weight of being stand-ins for unpleasantly familiar concerns. Beyond the mapping of problems to yokai, there's the notion that these creatures need to be healed or directed rather than controlled. In this manga, yokai behave by their own rules, and aren't simply around to either serve or bedevil humanity.

The concept has potential, and Yuki Sato has some of the tools needed to execute on it. Other, crucial pieces are missing. Simply put, Yuki Sato is not a particularly good manga storyteller. Pages and chapters are not developed with the efficiency they require. The revelation of Kuro's mother's fate hits on small, bottom panel of a left page, with that size and orientation lessening the impact. Plenty of manga bounce between light moments and dark ones, joking in the midst of something tragic, and then returning to the haunting subject. Sato engages in this too freely, confusing the tone as the scene is established. The consequences of these missteps accumulate and hamper the manga's ability to establish itself. While it's hard to miss the characters' alienation, the topography of their personality quirks and tribulations fail to register as graspable reality.

With Kotoko and Kuro lacking the solid presence needed to stand as a solid cornerstone on which yokai guest appearances are laid, YOKAI DOCTOR wobbles as manga that isn't as solidly interesting or memorable as it could have been. It still manages to feature solid monster illustrations, but that's only part of the premise's potential. Maybe YOKAI DOCTOR improves, but the full heft of linking yokai to manga school drama is not realized in the series’ first outing.

Scott Green has been writing for AICN ANIME for over seven years. If you like what you see here and love anime & manga, be sure to check out his latest AICN ANIME column here.

RED ROBIN #2
DC Comics

I know there are a lot of people ragging on this title, but I still find the premise to be intriguing. A ronin Red Robin searching the world for Batman, especially when it’s Tim under the mask, is a cool concept. But I see where folks aren’t liking this title. There’s the big leap in logic where it really isn’t explained why Tim believes Batman is alive when everyone else thinks he’s dead. Plus writer Chris Yost doesn’t make the narrative easy to follow by skipping from one location and time to another. I know that the Tarantino concept is being used, it’s just not being used that well. Still, for the premise alone, I’m sticking with this one to see how it all turns out…for the time being, that is.- Bug

THE LAST DAYS OF AMERICAN CRIME Preview
Radical Comics

Though not out until November, THE LAST DAYS OF AMERICAN CRIME is already one of my favorite new comics on the horizon. I've been checking out just about everything Rick Remender has been churning out lately. He's a writer with a strong sense of story and has a no bullshit way of filling his books to the brim with action. LAST DAYS is Remender's heist story, and what a heist story it is. Although in this preview, the details of said heist are only hinted at, the sense of urgency and dire circumstances pulses from every panel. The cool thing about this story is the sci fi angle. The government is about to unleash a brainwave mind-modulation thinger which makes it so all of America's citizens are unable to break the law. The deadline for the mind alteration is closing in, which forces our lead character to push the schedule up for a heist that guarantees he will be happy and loaded for the rest of his life. A winning plot, hard as nails dialog, and art by Greg Tocchini that that packs such a gut punch that you'll be peeing blood for a week after reading, THE LAST DAYS OF AMERICAN CRIME is what crime comics is all about. - Bug

FRANK CASTLE: THE PUNISHER
Marvel MAX

Just when I thought that there couldn’t be another good PUNISHER MAX story without Garth Ennis as writer, some guy named Victor Gischler pops up and writes a damn fine Punisher story. Frank is transporting a “delivery” (aka a gang banger in his trunk) to New Orleans; but gets sidetracked when his Punny Sense starts tingling at a rest stop. Turns out the stop is teeming with inbred rejects from a DELIVERANCE remake; which is good because Frank hasn’t killed anyone in a few miles. The mass slaughter in this issue is pretty damn epic. Sure, Gischler is adopting Ennis’ style here, but he’s doing a damn fine job of it. It helps that Ennis’ PUNISHER MAX artist Goran Parlov is back with some amazingly gruesome panels. All in all, a worthy successor to one of the best comic book runs in recent memory. - Bug

INCARNATE #1
Radical Comics

This is a gory comic book symphony of violence, action, and horror; imagine the result of an unholy three-way between Takashi Miike, Walter Hill, and Jack Kirby. Nick Simmons seems to have an entire twisted universe mapped out here and takes his sweet time doling out the goodness in delicious bloody spoonfulls. His american manga art style is an out of the ordinary but fitting way of telling this uncanny story. INCARNATE is not your typical horror story, blending action and cool in even helpings. The thrilling first issue makes has me all edge-of-my-seaty and begging for more. - Bug

GREEN LANTERN #43
DC Comics

Black Hand finally gets the ‘ol Geoff Johns Rogue Spotlight Special treatment here. It’s not a bad issue; focusing on Black Hand’s obsession with death. But like the issue of FLASH where the Mirror Master is snorting coke off a mirror in a bathroom, the ending of this issue came off a bit too real and too dark for a mainstream DC hero book. I know the ending was probably an important step for Black Hand in order to become a Black Lantern; it’s just that the graphic nature of the ending didn’t sit well with me. Like many though, I’m stoked for BLACKEST NIGHT (although they took their sweet damn time to get here). - Bug

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