Flashback Friday: "Hellspawn," Was a Horrifyingly Good Read

D. Emerson Eddy of The Comics Beat reminded me of a great little series the other day with one of their, "Classic Comic Compendium," articles. It was, "Hellspawn." Published by Image, it was an out-of-continuity series that hard Brian Michael Bendis writing and Ashely Wood providing art before Steve Niles took over writing and Ben Templesmith provided illustrations to close the 16 issue run out. It's creepy, ominous, and while I'm a big fan of Niles and Templesmith, I'm a huge fan of Wood's art and when Bendis' writing is on, it is good. This is an example of some quality Bendis storytelling.

I've always said I enjoy, "Spawn," comics the most when Todd McFarlane isn't writing them. This isn't meant as an outright insult to McFarlane either. McFaralne is an incredible artist and has some stellar ideas. I just don't think his writing/scripting is the absolute best. When other people take his ideas and run with them, however, the result is generally awesome. Whether it is how David Michelinie and McFarlane gave us Venom or that the, "Toddfather," and his Spawn helped create some cool stories when other folks wrote the character--such as, "Hellspawn," and other works (Alan Moore of all people kind of was slumming but gave us some interesting yarns). 

When McFarlane is mainly doing the art and contributing ideas as opposed to full-on scripting, the results can be pretty snazzy. Hence, I enjoy the character of Spawn the most somewhat paradoxically when McFarlane isn't writing him. "Hellspawn," with its demonic creatures, scary tone, and great dialogue stands as a prime example of that assertion. "Hellspawn," is going to have a new collected edition coming out in March of 2025. I look forward to it and hope that this new printing helps other folks discover a fantastic piece of work.

"Tales of Syzpense," #1 Brings Back the Split Comic in a Lovely Manner

I've been a fan of Ashley Wood's work for years and he's done a number of projects with IDW and now with Image. IDW's former Editor-in-Chief, Chris Ryall, and Wood collaborated a lot previously, and now they've come together with some other talents to bring us the esoterically-titled, "Tales of Syzpense." It brings back a format we haven't really seen lately--the split comic--and I'm glad it does!

As Ryall discusses in the back matter of the comic, split comics used to be a big thing with, "Tales to Astonish," and, "Tales of Suspense," over at Marvel, to give some examples. They would take two characters and half of the comic would focus on one and the other half on another with two different creative teams telling two totally different stories but sharing a cover. Now, we've got T.P. Louise and Ashely Wood bringing us, "Les Mort 13," and Chris Ryall and Nelson Daniel with, "Dreamweaver." Each story is quite different thematically and in art, but are alike in how both entertain wonderfully!

The first chunk of the comic is the aforementioned, "Les Mort 13," and centers on an eerie island and a visitor to it. The whole thing has an ominous vibe and features Wood's gorgeous artwork with his usual go-to's such as robots being involved. It's quirky and creepy so I really liked it.

"Dreamweaver," features a magical man named Cutler Carlton who realizes he's at a point in his career fighting mystical crime that he probably needs to retire and pass the mantle on to someone new. In the back matter of this issue, Ryall discusses how the comic will follow Carlton giving someone else his powers but then wanting them back and how much of a mess that causes, writing the idea was a bit like if Abin Sur had lived, given Hal Jordan the Green Lantern ring, and then decided he wanted it back. It was a solidly charming debut for the story as well and I enjoyed its more traditional comic art by Nelson as a counter to Wood's incredibly abstract-yet-gorgeous work.

I had a ball reading this first issue and look forward to more, "Tales of Syzpense." The split comic as a format was pretty much dead, but now it's back. I'm here to sing its praises if such a form can give us great comics like this one!

5 out of 5 stars.

There Are a Lot of, "Spawn," Variant Covers Coming for December

Next month we will get a ton of, "Spawn," variant covers to celebrate the character's 30th anniversary this year of 2022 (yep, 1992 was 30 years ago, which makes me feel old). There will be a lot of variant covers from Image--where Todd McFarlane created Spawn--and a whole bunch from DC. The ones at DC are because there is that big new crossover coming up between Spawn and Batman, so why not have a bunch of covers featuring Spawn with other DC heroes/villains? It is kind of fun, but man, that is a lot of Spawn.

I recently was in a discussion on Reddit with folks when someone posted how they loved the artwork in Spawn comics but found the writing to be painful. I commented that I weirdly enough really like Spawn stories not written by McFarlane. That sounds odd, but I have a fondness for the, "Hellspawn," series Brian Michael Bendis and Steve Niles wrote with Ashley Wood and Ben Templesmith doing the artwork. I also liked the crossover with WildC.A.T.S. that was written by Alan Moore of all people and considered hokey and dumb by some, but I feel it has a silly charm. Again though, when McFarlane himself writes his creation, I tune out any text and simply enjoy the artwork.

Do we need so many, "Spawn," covers? Probably not. Are some clever and do many of them look quite pretty? Yes, yes they do. These covers are like a lot of, "Spawn," content, frankly. A ton of style and minimal examples of substance. Just enjoy the pretty pictures and move along, in other words.

Ashley Wood and Chris Ryall Have Launched a New Imprint at Image

I know I just wrote about another Image comic earlier today ("The Black Monday Murders," to be exact), but I have even more interesting news from Image to share. Two creators who previously did a lot of work at IDW are launching a new imprint at Image (in the same way there is the Skybound imprint) which will be known as Syzygy Publishing. This caught my attention as I love a lot of the old comics Ashley Wood was involved in (from his work on, "Uncanny X-Men," with Joe Casey to his solo IDW work like, "Popbot,") and Chris Ryall has created good stuff too ("Zombies VS Robots," with Ashely Wood). Neither of them is directly making the first comic from their new imprint, although Ashley Wood is contributing a gorgeous variant cover as can be seen a bit further below in this post.

The debut comic from Syzgy Publishing is, "Joe Hill's Rain." It is a five-issue mini-series that adapts a short story by the talented writer Joe Hill (as the title indicates). As for the actual creative team, the PR release says how, "The award-winning creative team consisting of writer David M. Booher (Killer Queens), artist Zoe Thorogood (The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott), colorist Chris O’Halloran (Ha Ha), and letterer Shawn Lee (Madman Artist’s Select) will come together to bring Joe Hill's Rain to sequential form. Ryall and Wood contribute editorial and logo/production design, respectively." Basically, this imprint allows Wood and Ryall to curate some talent to make cool comics, much in the same way Robert Kirkman uses Skybound to make comics he likes/wants to get adapted as most of his stuff is now.

Ashley Wood makes great art.

As a big fan of Ashely Wood, I am intrigued by all this. Plus, if it means we get some cool variant covers by Wood along with quality comics then I'm all for this. Bleedingcool claims Image has plans for even more imprints with big names, so I wonder what else might be coming down the pipeline. It sounds absurd, but it just occurred to me how I'd be quite amused if something crazy like former DC bigwig Dan Didio launching an imprint with Image happened. If that ever does occur I'm gonna claim I called it first.

Popbot is Getting Re-Released in 2017!

I am a big fan of Ashley Wood and his work. Whether he is doing paintings, comics, making action-figures, or whatever tickles his fancy he creates gorgeous stuff. I was a huge fan of his, "Popbot," back in the day and was happy to see in the October issue of, "Previews," that it is being reissued as a big hardcover by publisher IDW, collecting the entire series. I don't think the last issue before the series stopped coming out was ever collected in anything besides the, "Big Beautiful Book," that is notoriously rare and gigantic.

The story follows a cat that once led a band and wants to sell his bodyguard robot, but things get much weirder with sexy humanoid robots, what may be the Devil, and Sherlock Holmes pops-by too, in addition to  (sorta) Andy Warhol. "Popbot" is absolutely gorgeous, supremely weird, and something I would recommend you read. It comes out January 2017, mark your calendars!

Rant-Reviews--Two New Image Books, Howard the Duck, and a Weird Issue of Batman

A Strange Assortment
For this smattering of Rant-Reviews I thought I would share my thoughts on two new Image books that came out this week, the newest launch of a Howard the Duck comic, and the 39th issue of Batman, with the series having gotten really strange lately.

The Reviews
The Surface #1
I am a fan of Ales Kot, so almost anything he writes is bound to be something I like. The Surface is his newest release with stellar and surreal art by Langdon Foss, and it reads like how people in the past might have predicted our comics in the future would read. It randomly bounces around between our main story and faux-articles about technology or interviews with some mysterious artist. It focuses on a world where we are so obsessed with our computers we let them share all our lives, and in the process lose any privacy (sound at all familiar to today), and some young hackers desire to fix this by finding a mysterious space called, "The Surface," which may or may  not prove all of our existence is a hologram

The comic clearly draws influences from Warren Ellis' famous "Transmetropolitian" comic with its satire of our society, and proudly wears such an influence on its sleeve, with one newsfeed we see flutter by in the comic mentioning a, "Spider Jerusalem" as a graffiti tag. The comic is also pretty humorous and a bit sad in the manner "Transmet" was but is clearly its own strange beast too. Foss' artwork has a realism to it that makes its ability to also look exaggerated and cartoonish even more impressive.  I'm not quite certain where Kot is going with this title, but I bet it will be pretty weird. In case you weren't sure, that is a good thing.
4 out of 5 stars.

Southern Cross #1
I like Becky Cloonan, and her writing for this comic set in the future (also like fellow image comic, "The Surface", go figure) carries a relaxed and down-to-earth tone with our main character, something that serves as a good counter to the fantastic space-elements as Alex Braith goes to the moon of Titan to recover her sister's body from a sleazy corporation that mines the planet--and one which Braith suspects might have had a hand in her sister's death. We don't actually learn this issue what happened to Braith's sister, but I am sure as the story continues more will be revealed. A solid start for the series, even if that weird last-page reveal is more confusing than anything else.
3.5 out of 5 stars.

Howard the Duck #1
I have seen it discussed how doing a "Howard the Duck" comic without the late Steve Gerber feels wrong, for a variety of reasons ranging to how he and Marvel quarreled about the character to how no one else seemed to write the character as well as Gerber did. I will agree there is some discomfort to such a comic appearing, but after the surprise cameo by Howard in last year's, "Guardians of the Galaxy," (Um, spoiler-alert for the one person who still hasn't seen it)" and the roaring response that got should we really be surprised if Marvel/Disney sees a chance to make money they take such a chance and run as fast to the bank with it as they can?

That said, it really helps that Chip Zdarsky (normally known for his art on "Sex Criminals") turns in some superb writing, giving us a comic full of gags and self-aware humor--even acknowledging Howard's at-times painful past with cinema (George Lucas, anyone?). Between making fun of everything from Spider-Man's obsession with Uncle Ben dying to She-Hulk pointing out Howard has an office straight out of the 1960's, Zdarsky writes a truly laugh-out-loud title. Joe Quinones supplies art that matches the tone perfectly, with a bright and poppy appearance hearkening back to Howard's old days while simultaneously fitting-in with today's era. It may feel sacrilegious to have Howard without Gerber, but even if we can't have that ever again at least this is a superb first issue.

5 out of 5 stars.

Batman #39

"Batman" has been quite strange as of late. Snyder wrapped up "Zero Year" to take us to events set after "Batman: Eternal" with the Joker causing utter mayhem. Joker has always had a variety of origins,  and the previous issue added another wrinkle claiming that some strange chemical has kept him alive for centuries, always being a troublemaker--as I said, kinda weird. Whether the story is true or pure nonsense may not really matter--as even the back-up story makes clear with the argument that the Joker is everything to everyone who needs some sort of boogeyman. That said, I've always been quite partial to the Alan Moore argument made in "The Killing Joke" that the Joker was simply a normal man who had a terrible day, with just the right elements leading him to crack. Whatever the case, writer Scott Snyder has made it clear that the Joker is done playing around, knows exactly who Batman really is in his public life, and wants to utterly destroy city.

The thing that makes this all a bit more interesting than any other time Joker had almost destroyed Gotham is the element of how the Court of Owls (characters Snyder introduced in this title's debut arc) may tie in with their chemicals that keep people alive, along with the interesting addition at the climax of this issue where Batman enlists the help of some of his other foes who despise him but also realize that if Joker obliterates Gotham they are out of luck too. Capullo also continues to supply art at an amazing level that makes you wonder where he was all these years before doing "Batman"--and the answer is that he was trapped in the hell of doing "Spawn" comics, a fate that can befall many a good artist, with even the phenomenal Ashley Wood once stuck illustrating a "Spawn" mini-series that was decent, but still "Spawn".

Snyder and Capullo have consistently made "Batman" a comic that is fascinating; whether is it good, bad, weird, or whatever else they choose it manages to consistently surprise me, something that I enjoy having occur.

4 out of 5 stars. 

Conclusions

Some good comics have been coming out lately, and whether on their debut issue or further along I found each of these at least pretty entertaining. That's always a good thing, you know?

Bits of News and Commentary For Your Brain

Interesting things are happening in the world. We should discuss them...

When I first head this news about Netflix making a deal with Comcast to improve streaming (something that can now be done due to how net neutrality as we knew it is dead), it made me worry. I of course want those who use Comcast to get good picture-quality, but when companies start making deals like this I wonder how it will affect various websites and online game-playing services, as this article discusses. I'm just concerned we will enter an era where big companies can have their websites operate quickly and everyone without mega-bucks will find their websites (or even blogs like my own) crawling along at dial-up speeds no matter how powerful someone's internet is.

I absolutely love the work of Ashley Wood. Therefore, when I heard he and T.P. Louise were going to be doing a new comic with/for IDW called, "The Beautiful War" I knew I would be reading it before even having a clue what the comic was about. Oh, and the article mentions a book coming out in June by Wood that you just know is going to rock too.

I love movies, so it was saddening to read today that one of the most ubiquitous voices we would hear when it came time to see the movie-previews and trailers has passed from cancer. Hal Douglas is a man whose face you may have never seen, but whose voice you undoubtedly have heard many, many times. Anytime I see a preview in the future I'll probably imagine it is his voice narrating the action--that is how ingrained he is in my head when it comes to trailers.

The first official photo from the new show featuring John Constantine

There are numerous times I don't think it is necessary to have the horrible habit that is smoking in a movie or television show, but when it comes to John Constantine the fact that he smokes is so ingrained in the character it would be odd to have a television show where he doesn't ever light-up. I can see how it even serves the plot with the 1st-season cliffhanger being him learning he has lung-cancer or something, just as happened in the comic (and was a plot-point in the terrible movie we shall not speak of again).

At the time that plane flying from Malaysia disappeared I thought that it would either land shortly someplace due to a hi-jacking, or sadly be found as wreckage somewhere. Then the plane wasn't found, and people still have no clue what happened to it. It is very weird stuff.

Everyone likes to talk about how the Wii U is an immense failure and dead-in-the-water. This pleasant article points out there are things to like about the machine, but it is suffering problems that if not fixed in 2014, could in fact spell its doom. Then again, some say the mystery device Nintendo is working on for healthy lifestyles or such is a way to slowly phase out the Wii U, so who knows?

He may refuse to do any press-interactions,
but Steve Ditko still has that interesting-style to his art.

I myself am kind of burnt-out on Kickstater lately with all the scandals (John Campbell's project has become a mess full of awful behavior), or just how delayed it often seems projects often get--or just fall apart completely leaving people without their money or rewards. That said, it still can be a good way for someone to get their work out there, and if you are a person like the reclusive Steve Ditko, who still has a fervent fan-base but does little press for his small comic-projects, then Kickstarter can be a great idea. I wonder just how much he will raise in the end.

This article by The AV Club came out almost a month ago but I finally got around to reading it. It points out how currently many Marvel comics have fascinating and varied art-styles. I would agree. As an article on Comics Alliance pointed out way back in November, it sort-of feels like DC has a house-style to their comics, but Marvel does not--and that results in a much richer experience for readers at the former company as opposed to the other. I may be highly critical of the ever-increasing comic-price many comics have, but at least it seems Marvel with their "Marvel NOW" initiative is trying new and interesting things--as opposed to DC, which is trying things that seem utterly bonkers (see my article about the insanity of 3 weekly titles for an example) while having relatively dull art and stories.

Lastly, this is why we can't have nice things, due to stunts like this. Yes, that viral-video everyone loved of various strangers meeting for the first time and then kissing has turned out to be little more than an ad for a clothing company. We can add this to the list of internet-video hoaxes (Hello, twerking-fail) and now be getting to a point where we feel we can't believe anything on the internet...which I guess is at least better than believing everything on the internet?

July 2011 Previews--What Looks Promising

Time to say what is looking like it might be pretty snazzy in the latest edition of Previews that came out recently. Oh, you know my spiel about how I mention new things and not all the good things that have been coming out forever, etc. etc. As always the popular "what looks awful" will be posted soon too. Look for it tomorrow morning around 10:30 AM.

Three stories involving Zombies and Robots in One Book.

ZVR Aventure
No, That's not a typo, it actually is spelled Aventure. This large hardcover collects the four issues of the series that involved three different stories by three different artists but written by the original series author, Chris Ryall. Without Ashley Wood were things any good? More or less.

Zombies VS Robots to Become a Movie. Despite Ingrained Cynicism, I Am Excited.

It has been announced that the popular Chris Ryall-written and Ashely Wood-illustrated series, "Zombies Versus Robots," has been optioned as a movie. It involves a little girl (possibly the last human on earth) being protected by robots from--what else--zombies. Look, I know I've made comments about how the only thing more over-done lately in movies and comics than zombies is vampires, but despite my usual tendency to be cold and logical, I am actually excited for this movie. Why? Maybe it is because I enjoyed the art of Ashley Wood so much that a part of me hopes a movie is just as awesome, or its the kid in me that jumps for joy at the prospect of watching zombies and robots tear each other apart. Whatever the case I am giddy. Wait, what? Michael Bay is involved? The guy who does good special effects but otherwise makes sucky movies like Transformers? My enthusiasm just dropped by two points.

Rant Reviews--Iron Suits, Bone Claws, Green Arrows, and Robots Fighting Zombies.

The first of Marvel's ".1" issues, this time featuring Iron Man, Wolverine's son causing trouble, Green Arrow sucking a bit less, and one dollar for some snazzy Ashley Wood art.

3 Pieces of Random Comics News and a Pretty Painting.

Some random bits of news and pictures for you, and I figured out how to do bullet points!

• Here is Batman drawn by one of my favorite artists (in comics and general), Ashely Wood. Damn, he has got some skills. Imagine if Ashely Wood drew a regular Batman comic...it would rock:

• I was going to review Action Comics #897, but Comics Alliance did a better job than I could.

• Flashpoint is going to have a whopping 15 tie-ins to the main comic with 14 of them announced. I will be buying none of them.

•  Another website discusses rumors of Marvel lowering prices.