Aetheric Mechanics

Boiled down to its essence, Aetheric Mechanics is a steampunk Sherlock Holmes mystery, but there is more to it than that. For starters, Warren Ellis has slightly changed all the familiar Holmesian tropes to make them his own. His detective is called “Sax Raker” and his physician sidekick is called "Richard Watcham". There are also thinly-disguised incarnations of Inspector Lestrade, Irene Adler, and Mrs. Hudson at hand, while characters sounding suspiciously like Moriarty and Mycroft Holmes are also mentioned in passing. Ellis hasn’t simply resorted to homage because he couldn’t or didn’t want to gain the permission of the Conan Doyle estate to use the real characters. There’s a very specific reason why everyone s not quite the way we remember them, but the truth behind that is just one of the many delights to be found in this most excellent one-shot from Avatar Press.

The year is 1907 and conflict between Britain and Ruritania (yes, that’s the fictional country from The Prisoner of Zenda) has broken out into open war across Europe. In this alternate world, the study of aetheric mechanics allows the flight of launches and spacefaring battleships via apergy engines and cavorite (yes, that's the antigravitic metal from The First Men in the Moon. Are we sensing a theme here?) rotors, among other technological marvels. As our tale opens, Dr. Watcham has been sent back to London from the front due to an injury. Having fulfilled his duty, he finds himself back to his familiar rooms -- we’re not actually told they’re at 221B Baker Street, but it’s fairly evident. Watcham finds Raker brooding in his study as usual, willfully oblivious to the political machinations of the greater world and instead focused like a laser on the latest sensational crime to hit London.

It seems that an invisible assailant who keeps popping in an out of existence has been accosting and even slaying prominent local scientists and engineers, and Watcham hasn’t even time to unpack his bags before the game is afoot once more. Like Sherlock Holmes, Raker is equally proficient at the solving of perplexing mysteries, but the answer at the root of this one is so mind-boggling that neither the characters nor the readers will ever see it coming.

The black and white artwork by Gianluca Pagliarani is mostly fantastic. He clearly takes pride in his craft and lavishes every page with a breathtaking amount of detail. His cityscapes and steampunkian contraptions are first-rate and one can literally spend five minutes taking in meticulous renderings of Raker’s study or the Disappearing Man’s underground lab. I have one nitpick about this book, however, and it’s a pretty big sticking point for me: I can’t stand how Pagliarani draws faces. Everyone in this story has a bulbous nose and slit reptilian eyes. If an artist has a weakness in any other area- say he can’t draw hands, or feet, or horses- I could overlook it to some extent, but as humans we identify so strongly with people’s faces and especially their eyes that’s it’s very disconcerting when every face has creepy eyes with tiny pinprick pupils. I almost feel like I’m reading about a race of snake people rather than human beings, which is a real disappointment because in every other way the art is first rate. I actually find myself resisting the impulse to white out all the eyes in this book and draw in wider, more reflective, more human-looking ones!

You have to admire the imagination and work ethic of Warren Ellis, an extremely prolific writer who seems to produce something like five different titles each and every month. Some of his books have weight to them, others seem like an idea he tossed off during a subway ride, but his comics are consistently entertaining. With Aetheric Mechanics, he is able to balance a fun adventure with some really dizzying existential conundrums that may lead to a shark-jumping moment for some readers, but I totally went with it and loved every zig and zag. Also, perhaps because this is a period piece, the overbearing sarcasm and cynicism which is a staple of Ellis characters is toned way down, which is to the story’s benefit. All told, this is one of the best books I’ve read all year, and well worth the purchase if you can find a copy.

Rating: 9.5/10

Zero-G #1

When I take a chance on a new title or unknown creators these days, my M.O. more often than not is to buy the first issue when it’s solicited, then if it hooks me when it arrves to wait for the trade. I realize that’s not the ideal way to support up and coming artists, but I do have to work within a budget here. Too many times in the past I’ve wasted dough preordering three or even four issues of a title before reading the first one and learning it’s less than great.

In the case if Zero-G, however, I have indeed preordered the whole mini for two reasons. First, the solicitation sounded like the kind of thing I would dig and the cover art was good. Second, there’s really no guarantee that a relatively minor series such as this will ever be traded if it sells poorly in singles. Since the ultimate goal of this blog is to try in some small way to raise the profile of SF comics in the U.S., I have in this case put my money where my mouth is.

So far, no regrets. The first issue is fast-paced and fun, and Jason Badower’s interior art is just as pretty as his cover. While there’s a lot of set-up going on, Alex Zamm never goes overboard with talking heads and there’s plenty of time for a rocket launch, a dogfight in space, close encounters and some very bad news to close out the issue on a cliffhanger.

The plot is set in motion by the approach of a massive asteroid the size of Manhattan, which will pass through the solar system between the Moon and Mars. Interest in space exploration is at such a low these days that such a sighting probably wouldn’t stir up enough public support for a mission, however Zamm has a solution for this. This asteroid just so happens to be absolutely filthy with gold, platinum, diamonds, and enough uranium-235 to solve the world’s energy crisis. Suddenly, several different nations are in a race to get there first, not to mention at least one ambitious billionaire eager to finance his own private enterprise to claim this unprecedented source of wealth and power.

The initial discovery of the approaching asteroid is made by Atom Weaver, a simple geologist who finds himself thrown onto the team greenlit to plant the U.S. flag on its surface. Atom makes a good point-of-view character because he’s a reasonably average guy thrust into extraordinary circumstances. Plus, the team leader in charge of the billionaire’s competing mission happens to be his former college sweetheart!

So what makes this story science fiction? The core premise could be about rival treasure hunters racing to claim a gold-leaden Spanish galleon at the bottom of the ocean. But soon after out heroes land on the asteroid’s surface, they discover artificially carved tunnels in the rock, stumble across an underground graveyard of giant alien carcasses, and spot a shadowy observer whose silhouette strongly resembles a humanoid robot. All this in just the first issue!

The creators of Zero G show some real talent. Alex Zamm's writing is fun, breezy and not overly serious. There is good comeraderie between the characters, and the action moves fast with minimal exposition. Jason Badower’s pencils are quite nice, though he can’t resist the temptation to draw everyone beautiful and buff; even scientists and miners have tight athletic bodies. The most unintentionally funny line in the book actually comes from the character data files in the back: in the entry for Weaver’s ex we find out: “Evelyn has found her supermodel looks make it difficult for her to gain the respect she’s due from the scientific community.” Yet, look how she chooses to present herself in the televisied press conference announcing her mission:


Come now, this is a woman who wants everyone to respect her scientific abilities and not pay attention to her looks? Riiiight.

In this first issue, the creators basically lined up a bunch of dominoes, and over the next three months we get to watch ‘em fall. Zero-G is shaping up to be a fun little adventure, and so far I have no regrets about committing to the entire run.

Rating: 8/10

The Martian Confederacy

This is easily the most challenging comic I’ve attempted to review in the short existence of this blog, and I don’t just mean because my copy was a misprint missing the first 8 pages (although that certainly didn’t help). Great characters rub shoulder with outlandish unrelatable ones. Exciting, engaging passages are undermined by tangents into eccentric shtick. A steady increase in suspense is deflated by anticlimax. All this depicted with disappointingly simplistic artwork that looks for all the world like a minicomic sketched out with a sharpie in the back of biology class instead of paying attention to the teacher.

In the far future, humanity has joined the greater interstellar community, and a habitable Mars is a local tourist attraction for the galaxy. Writer Jason McNamara concocts a mostly believable future history in which Mars’ core is restarted, the polar ice caps are harvested for drinking water, and immigrants relocated in droves from the filthy Earth, but lest we mistakenly take the premise (or this graphic novel) too seriously, he also throws in the fact that the people of this future society consider 20th century entertainment to be historical artifacts, hence “apes replaced dogs as human pets in the 1980’s and William Shatner bravely conquered space travel.” It’s this kind of serial dopiness that crops up again and again throughout the book.

The plot is set in motion when a local professor develops a moss which will enrich the Martian atmosphere. This would eliminate the need for the breathers humans have been relying on to survive in the thin air. The local Alacalde, who is a total crooked bastard, finds this completely unacceptable, since he is heavily invested in the Breather market, so he murders the prof and burns down his lab. When he suspects that samples of the moss may have already been taken elsewhere, he’s petrified that the Breather industry is about to become obsolete. The bulk of the comic is a long chase as the Alacalde and his goons try to kill off anyone who might have learned about the professor’s experiment before it is revealed to the world.

At the center of this situation are three characters that I took a great liking to. Elijah Boone is a thief, outlaw and all around scoundrel who considered the professor like a father to him growing up. Aside from the questionable way he makes a living, Boone’s defining characteristic is he’s a total babehound who has seemingly scored with every woman on the planet. In fact, the only female he’s not interested in is his roommate Lou, but that’s only because she’s an android, and he doesn’t go that way. It’s his loss, because Lou is easily the most delightful and charming character in the whole book, a funny and fearless rogue who laughs in the face of danger and coolly navigates through every sticky situation with style. Spinner is your standard-issue uplifted bear, who runs a local dive in order to provide for his wife and cubs. Spinner isn’t actually involved in Boone and Lou’s shady lifestyle, but when he is thrown through no fault of his own into this mess, it’s great to watch the veil of domesticity drop away. He becomes reacquainted with his inner grizzly when would-be assassins threaten him, his family and his way of life.

Other characters, however, are so outlandish they truly challenge the readers’ suspension of disbelief. Like this cute babe named Sureena whom Boone meets early on that is willing to become all involved in his troubles after only a few minutes of conversation. When the Alacalde nearly catches up with them, Sureena is willing to doff her clothes, pretend to be a stripper, and distract the lawman with her boobs in order to let Boone sneak off and abandon her. Later when Boone breaks into her house covered head to tow in excrement (yes, really) she not only invites him to use her shower, she hops in with him! Boone is supposedly good with the ladies, but this is ridiculous!

The goofiest character of all is the Alacalde’s genetically anomalous girlfriend Sally, who is basically like a siamese twin, only with two top halves that meet in the middle. When the side that loves him is up top, her other half is upside down, walking on her hands underneath their skirt. Halfway through the story she/they do a somersault, the skirt flips over, and the side who is not so keen on the Alacalde is up top! Sally defies all logic: how does she go to the bathroom without a bottom half? Doesn’t all the blood rush to her upside down head? Maybe I’m taking this all too literally, and the reader is supposed to accept the character metaphorically. But what’s the metaphor? Women’s conflict over falling for men that are no good for them? Probably I’m just too literal-minded a reader to get behind the meaning of all the story’s really out-there elements.

When I cracked open this book I took an immediate dislike to Paige Braddock’s minimalist art style, though I must admit it grew on me after awhile and by the end I decided it was not totally horrible. Every once in awhile she nails a certain facial expression just perfectly, but overall I was pretty underwhelmed. Maybe my tastes are too mainstream but I could’ve enjoyed this book a lot more with a more accomplished penciller, especially for a book with a $15 cover price. Also all the black and white art is shaded in swaths of red, which gets old really fast. Red, cause it’s Mars, get it?

It’s very strange, I really wanted to like the Martian Confederacy a lot more than I actually did. Unfortunately, the final product is not as wonderful as some of its better elements, and it almost pains me to say I would only rate it about a 5.5. Despite my decidedly mixed reaction to this book, I actually would be interested in seeing another adventure of these characters, under the right circumstances. If McNamara were to bring back Boone, Lou, and Spinner, retain the humor while toning down the over-the-top surreal parts, and drawn by a more professional artist, I really think he could end up with a great product. In the meantime, I’m stuck with this odd duck of a book that I can’t even resell because it’s missing pages. Rats.

M-Theory #1

The creators of M-Theory pretty much state their intentions right on the cover, which is clearly an homage to the EC sci-fi comics of the 50s. This title is chock full of retro elements that wouldn’t be out of place in those books of old: aliens, monsters, robots, and space rangers armed with ray guns and jetpacks populate these pages. Sadly, the theme doesn’t continue on the artistic side, which doesn’t reflect the EC style in any way and is a big letdown.

With so many ingredients thrown into the mix, writers Dwight L. MacPherson and Bruce Brown unveil no fewer than three plotlines in the premiere issue in this mini. The first involves the fallout from America’s first contact with aliens in, you guessed it, Roswell New Mexico. The second takes place in Princeton’s science department during Albert Einstein’s tenure there and in the third we are off in deep space with the aforementioned spacemen. Presumably these threads will all dovetail together by the end, though how they will be able to coherently accomplish this in just 3 issues remains to be seen.

The lead character of the Roswell section is Friedrick Goetz, a jaded and cynical inventor with his own robot sidekick in tow. Goetz witnessed the arrival of the aliens firsthand, although in this version of events they didn’t crash but rather landed safely and were subsequently blasted out of existence by the trigger-happy U.S. army. Before dying, one of the aliens transfers its consciousness into Goetz, giving him instant knowledge of an entire otherworldly civilization. Over the next five years, Goetz toils in a secret underground research facility replicating the aliens’ technological marvels, but he is bitterly certain the government will never allow the average citizen the benefit of their use.

In the Princeton section, Agnes Font is a young physicist who has built a “quantum receiver” capable of communicating with other dimensions for her master’s project. Now I’m all for equal opportunity, but it seems anachronistic to have one of Einstein’s contemporaries be a cute young female, but then I wasn’t around in the 50s so maybe I just have a wrongheaded idea of gender roles in that time. Anyway, in a classic “be careful what you wish for” scenario, Agnes’ device succeeds in making contact with an alien consciousness which reaches out from wherever-- but when their minds meet she’s overwhelmed and passes out.

In the third and most action-packed section, three unidentified dudes in spacesuits travel around space blasting just about everything that crosses their sights. As I read along, I had in my mind that perhaps these were U.S. soldiers utilizing the tech that Goetz was developing, but really that’s just guesswork on my part. It’s never mentioned who these guy are, what they’re up to, or even if they’re from Earth. Their “shoot first, ask questions later” attitude is reminiscent of the army in the Roswell scene, so maybe that’s meant to be a hint.

Mike Barentine’s pencils killed a lot of my potential enjoyment of this issue. I realize there are not many artists around today who can compare to Wally Wood or Al Williamson, but at least an attempt should have been made to emulate the EC art style in some way. Barentine’s zany Mad Magazine-style cartooning is not only not attractive, it makes the whole project seem lightweight and disposable, as if the creators are saying “you weren’t planning to in any way take this seriously, were you?” If someone put a blaster to my head and forced me to say something positive, I would point out that Barentine draws good distinctive faces, but that’s about it.

Behind the scenes, the situation with M-Theory seems as messy and disjointed as what’s between the pages. After issue two had already been solicited MacPherson and company decided to part ways with Shadowline and Image over compensation issues, the result being that issue one is the only one you are likely to see on the stands anytime soon. Now I notice that issue two (but not one) has been posted on WOWIO, so it doesn’t seem likely that any kind of profit is going to be turned on this thing.

It’s a pity that I don’t dig M-Theory more, it has all the elements of a fun little retro tale, but the creators don’t seem to be saying much new or interesting with them. And the art simply isn’t my thing. I appreciate the effort, but I would only give the finished product a 6/10. It’s too bad they couldn’t get Al Williamson out of retirement to draw this, but then again they probably couldn’t afford him, especially if they’re going to be giving the issues away for free.

Heavy Metal Overload Special Summer 2008

To this day, the name Heavy Metal puts a little song in my geeky heart. This despite the fact that, in actuality, I’ve read proportionately very little of its impressive 30-year run. I suppose a lot of the warm fuzzy glow I get from the brand comes from the daring 1981 animated extravaganza, which hit HBO around the time I was 12 and pretty much blew my hormonally-ravaged young mind. I was just the perfect age for its bizarre blend of juvenile and adult, fantastic and uncouth.

Flash forward ten years. I have disposable income and no longer fear parental units stumbling across my weird nudie space comics and demanding an explantation. So I signed up for a 3-year subscription to Heavy Metal and gleefully rubbed my hands together in anticipation of the delights to follow.

The verdict: a mixed bag. Somehow, the magazine didn’t entirely live up to my idea of what it would be. Maybe it was because the days of Moebius and Bode were well in the rearview mirror. The original owner had sold the magazine to Peter Eastman- co-creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles- who seemed to see it primarily as a vehicle to promote the career of Julie Strain, a D-list actress with ginormous fake boobs who happens to be Eastman’s wife. Maybe I was misled by the quality of the film into thinking Heavy Metal was something it wasn’t. All I know is the ratio of stories I enjoyed to those I didn’t was about 1:5.

There were things that irritated me. For example, there were some ongoing series that others readers (or at least the editors) enjoyed way more than I did. It seemed like every 4 or 5 months there was a new installment of certain stories that I didn’t want to read in the first place. Other times, they would print the first part of a story and never print the rest. They also started reprinting a lot of old Atomika and Tundra material, which pissed me off because I had already bought it the first time! I was also aggravated with the magazine’s policy of publishing seasonal special editions which weren’t considered part of the subscription. Even though I had signed up to have the magazine delivered to my doorstep, there were issues on the stands that I wasn’t getting. Like I said, irritating.

Once my subscription ran out, I cut ties with Heavy Metal and haven’t bought a copy in the intervening 12 or so years. I would flip through it from time to time on the stands, but the Summer 2008 special caught my eye in a way that no other issue had for quite some time: some fantastic artwork…a sexy lady…WWI soldiers in combat…a half-man half-robot and a mad scientist type in his spooky lab. They got me. I plunked down my seven bucks figuring, “even if it ends up sucking I can rip it apart on my blog.”

The issue’s first story is a quick 7-pager called “The Door” by JM Darlot and IG Holgado. It concerns an ordinary-seeming desk jockey whose day at the office is suddenly interrupted by the arrival of a new door which he did not order. No sooner have the delivery men propped up the mysterious door and departed then a knocking begins to sound from the other side- even though there is no other side! I’ve never been a big fan of the short form and nothing here changes that opinion. “The Door” is more about setting a mood than telling a story, and it’s only partially successful at doing that. Holgado’s clean artwork is almost Disneyesque, which is a look I enjoy sometimes but isn’t quite dark enough for the creepy tone Darlot’s going for here. An intriguing premise to a better story than anything satisfying unto itself.

The title character of Massimo Visavi and Adriano de Vincentiis’ “Sophia” provides the issue’s requisite T&A. De Vincentiis’ art is very good, he is as adept at drawing beautiful villas or the canals of Venice as he is the curves of a nude woman. So at least there is something nice to look at while you are plowing through an otherwise underwhelming supernaturally-tinged quest around the globe. Along the way we are subjected to some pretty awkward dialogue, although whether that can be chalked up to bad writing on Visavi’s part or a poor translation I couldn’t say.

Sophia Delamore is the scion of the very powerful but extremely dysfunctional dynasty. Her father went insane, and tried to murder her as a baby. Her mother had no choice but to kill him to save Sophia, but she in turn was killed by the vengeful grandfather. The evil grandfather is dead now as well, but his estate is in limbo because no one can locate his will, which has been locked away in a small carved chest behind a mysterious symbol. Sophia’s people track down the box, but before she can even figure out how to open it it’s stolen again. So she criss-crosses the world to once again gain possession of the heirloom. Imagine a watered-down cross between the Da Vinci Code and Raiders of the Lost Ark, only with Paris Hilton as the heroine.

And that was the biggest of the story’s several problems. Sophia is a rich, haughty celebrity who is too dumb to know that baby tank tops and high-heeled boots are impractical attire for slogging though a South American jungle (this can’t be chalked up to artistic license, by the way, even other characters point out how ludicrously she dresses). Visavi tries with mixed results to make her more sympathetic through flashbacks of her as a young girl being haunted by her mother’s ghost and being abused by an evil nun. It all leads up to a whopper of a revelation at the end, and the realization that, regardless of the “The End” on the last page, this is really only the first chapter of an ongoing saga. I can only wonder when another chapter might appear, and whether anyone will care when it does.

If I thought the translation in “Sophia” was sloppy, it’s ten times worse in the next story, a noir-looking boxing story called “Man at the Carpet.” Actually, the translation is so egregious the only way I can tell what the story is supposed to be is by looking at the sketchy Ted McKeever-esque artwork. The captions are really that indecipherable!

Example the first, our narrator Joe describing how an opponent’s punch feels like being hit by a train: “…it seemed to me the most logical explanation, to strike me had to have been for strength a commodities train and not the red boxing glove of Tyler Holland, my challenger.” Flows nicely, doesn’t it?

Someone urges Joe to get an honest job and avoid criminal types: “Think to stay up, pal… you are young. One like you finds a good job to the docks. Don’t fall out with that people!” Wha…huh?

An aforementioned criminal type tries to convince him of…something… “It’s not good enough to be good to arrive at the top… It always needs the help of someone, There is who looks for it, and who, like you, receives that help without know it.” Words to live by, my friend, words to live by.

The whole story is this puzzling. I’m not sure what’s more appalling, that someone did such a horrific job of English translation, or that said translation crossed some editor’s desk who responded, “Looks great-- print it!” Everyone involved with the magazine should be embarrassed that this thing ever saw print like this.

The story that redeems the whole issue is Xavier Dorison and Enrique Breccia’s fantastic “The Sentries”, a bleak cyber-monster story set in the opening of World War I (would that make it--- “Greatwarpunk”?) Based on the eye-popping artwork alone I was convinced to buy this special, and there are visual treats to pour over on every page. Breccia’s actually a world famous artist, but I’ve been ignorant of his work up until now. This page is from the original French version, but check the pencils:

The script is equally compelling, telling the tale of a tortured soul whose good intentions lead to nothing but misery. Gabriel Feraud is a scientist who has invented a radium-powered battery, but despite his family’s near-destitution refuses to sell the design to the military for use in the impending war. Colonel Alphonse Mirreau is in charge of Project Sentries, a research experiment to create cyborg soldiers for the French army. Previous attempts have failed because the cyborgs didn’t have sufficient power and ran down on the battlefield. Now Mirreau will utilize all the pressure his rank provides to strongarm Feraud into handing over his battery design. What follows is a test of wills as Feraud tries to uphold his principles. But as often happens when a lone citizen tries to stand up to will of the institution, his struggles may ultimately prove the downfall of his entire family.

Breaking down the issue by rating:
"The Door" (7 pages): 7
"Sophia" (54 pages): 5.5
"Man at the Carpet" (10 pages): Incomplete!?
"The Sentries" (62 pages): 9

At first blush, it might not seem worth picking up the Overload special just for one story, but because "The Sentires" is so good, and because it is so long, it just about justifies the $6.95 price tag on its own. Monthly comics are about three bucks for 22 pages, so the price actually compares favorably. I say grab a copy, and if you happen to like some of the other stories too, even better!