Some reviews from the first four months of the year … part twelve!

All right, let’s do these quick and dirty, just like your mom likes it!

Santos Sisters volume 1 (March) by Greg & Fake (artist & writer, respectively). $24.99, 143 pgs, Fantagraphics.

The Santos sisters are two relatively vapid young women who get superpowers and fight crime in a mildly R-rated, Archie Comics-esque universe in this fun but silly collection. Hilariously, the only “origin” we get for them is on the back cover – they found some medallions on the beach which gave them powers and a supernatural mentor who doesn’t show up that often – and they just do their thing, fighting bad guys, meeting weird creatures and hanging out with some of them, fending off the advances of douchebags, and generally looking for a good time. Each story is only a few pages long, and there’s some continuity between them – one of the sisters has a consistent boyfriend – but the creators are just throwing shit against the wall and having a good time. The art is charmingly cartoonish, which works for the overall tone of the book and because “Greg” constantly introduces odd-looking creatures, which fit nicely into the goofy aesthetic of the comic. I don’t know if I’m going to keep getting collections of this comic (if more are forthcoming, of course), but I don’t regret getting this. It’s fun!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

The Savage Sword of Conan #7 (March) by various creators. $6.99, 57 pgs, Titan Comics.

Roy Thomas writes a story about Conan teaming up with another thief, which we think is going to involve a lovely lady Conan is taking home after rescuing from slavers but actually turns out to be about a different woman and a curse, which is not good news for either Conan or the other dude. It’s a solid Conan story with really beautiful art from Roberto de la Torre. Then, Patrick Zircher writes a very fun story about a backwoodsman who doesn’t take kindly to another man – and a dandy, at that! – romancing his girl, so he does something that might cause a blood feud between families and our “hero” is consigned to a penance of 12 labors, much like Hercules. He completes them, of course, but when he goes back home … things aren’t what he expected. Zircher has a good time with the labors and the “twist” ending, and Juan Alberto Hernández’s art is superb, as he gives us the best giant demonic bear since Sienkiewicz? Anyway, it’s a lot of fun. And there you have it!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Sink #13-15 (January-March) by John Lees (writer) Alex Cormack (artist), and Shawn Lee (letterer). $14.97, 78 pgs, ComixTribe.

I hope Lees and Cormack continue Sink whenever they have time, because it’s such a good comic and I’m sure it makes no money, but why should that matter when you’re creating ART!!!! In these final three issues of this latest “arc,” we get a “secret origin” of Chrissie, the old woman we met in issue #11, we get an issue about the war brewing between various horror factions in Glasgow, and we get a story of a young chef competing on a burger-making cooking show and how that ties into the bigger story Lees is telling in the series. As always, Lees makes every character – even the extremely scary ones – interesting and real, so that their fates matter, even when their fate is to be killed horribly. He’s slowly tying things together, even though each issue, for now, remains mostly standalone (but, as I noted, with issue #15, it seems like he’s beginning to form a bigger, longer plot). Cormack, as usual, does excellent work on the art, as he continues to impress with how detailed he makes all the mayhem, putting us right in the middle of it and freaking us out by how violent it is. Sink is a really good comic. Go buy it and let Lees know you want more!!!!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Spectregraph (March) by James Tynion IV (writer), Christian Ward (artist/colorist), Aditya Bidikar (letterer), and Eric Harburn (editor). $35.00, 181 pgs, Dstlry.

I don’t know if Tynion has seen the 2001 horror classic Thirteen Ghosts (which, in addition to starring Future Oscar Winner Shannon Elizabeth, is also a remake?), but I get a real “Thirteen Ghosts” vibe from Spectregraph, which features a very fancy, mod-looking house that a person is using to trap ghosts. The plot isn’t the same, but I just get that vibe.

Anyway, a real estate agent heads up to a spooky house to show it off, but the people buying it and their representative have some odd ideas about what to do there, and the agent and the rep get trapped inside with a bunch of ghosts and have to get out. There’s a “we want to be immortal” plot line as well, but I’m not going to get into that. What I do want to mention is that the agent, Janie, is horrible, and I’m not sure why Tynion made her so horrible. She leaves her infant son at home (to be fair, she forgot him because she was under pressure to leave to get to the house), and that drives her when she gets stuck inside the house – she needs to get home. Look, I get that people under pressure can forget things, but the way Tynion writes it so that she can’t possibly return home and take care of her baby instead of going out to the house is silly, and it makes Janie seem like a monster. It just feels artificial, as no mother – at least, no mother that seems to care about her kid, which Janie ostensibly does – is going to act the way she does (there’s no spouse in the picture, so that’s out). It’s frustrating, because it feels like Tynion wanted to raise the stakes, which is fine, but the way he does it is dumb. Oh well. Meanwhile, Ward’s art is spectacular as usual – the inside of the house is confounding and beautiful and terrifying – and his ghosts are wonderfully creepy. It’s a typical Dstlry harcover, meaning that it’s really a nice book, and it’s pretty good, I just couldn’t get over Janie being such a bad mother when it feels like Tynion wants us to believe she’s not.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Superman: Space Age (March) by Mark Russell (writer), Michael Allred (artist), Laura Allred (colorist), Dave Sharpe (letterer), and Brittany Holzherr (collection editor). $24.99, 240 pgs, DC.

This is a pretty good “Elseworlds” story, in which the DC Universe ages in real time between 1963 (the book essentially begins with the Kennedy assassination) and 1985 (the book basically ends with the Crisis, although it’s a slightly different kind), with the focus on Superman, naturally, but a lot of other heroes showing up as well. Russell does a pretty good job with the changing times and how Superman might react to them, and Allred’s art is always good to see. Pariah, of all people, tells 1960s Superman about the far future of the 1980s, and Superman is always trying to figure out a way to stop the apocalypse to come, which Pariah says he just can’t do. This can be a fairly bleak story, but Russell does some interesting things with it, and the way the characters react to how the world is changing is pretty neat. I’m sure Bill Reed liked this a lot more than I do, but to me, it’s just a solid superhero story – it’s perfectly fine, but nothing spectacular. Still, the art is pretty keen.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Time Waits (April) by Chip Zdarsky (writer), David Brothers (writer), Marcus To (illustrator), Marvin Sianipar (illustrator), Matt Wilson (colorist), Ariana Maher (letterer), and Allison O’Toole (editor). $30.00, 135 pgs, Dstlry.

This is a pretty interesting time travel story, in which a member of a kill team from the future decides to hide out in the past (our present) when he decides that killing people ain’t cool. Of course, his bosses want something he has (or, they think he has), so they keep sending people to his time to try to get it and, you know, kill him. What makes it interesting is that the future isn’t too far into the future, so Zdarksy and Brothers have some fun with “hey, who’s still alive in the future?” kind of stuff, which works well in the context of the story. The reason they’re going back in time is pretty good, and all-too-relevant for our current and future situation (hint: it involves an evil corporation, because of course it does). This is a just a good action thriller with some social relevance, and the time travel aspect does not make my head hurt, so I can deal with it. To does his usual good work on art (he and Sianipar are both listed as illustrators, but I assume it’s a penciler/inker thing, unless Sianipar’s work really looks like To’s), as he’s just good at action, which is why he’s a good superhero artist. As I noted above, Dstlry does a really nice job with the presentation of their hardcovers, so this is a nice comic. Nothing revolutionary, but solid.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Transdimensional (January) by Michael Gordon (writer), Henrique Pereira (artist), Jan Wijngaard (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer), Colin Bell (letterer), Warren Montgomery (letterer), Jed McPherson (letterer), and Neil Gibson (editor). $24.99, 84 pgs, Twisted Comics.

This is a not-bad but slightly standard horror story, in which a dude takes a team down into the depths of the ocean to retrieve a submarine that’s been lost for decades, but encounters something else entirely. It’s fine, but it does rely on some annoying clichés, like the dude who can’t accept that his daughter is going to die – our hero’s kid is sick, and he grows increasingly unhinged about it. There’s nothing wrong with basing a story around a parent’s attempts to help their kids – it’s almost universally guaranteed to tug at heartstrings – but it is a bit annoying when the parent starts acting really stupidly due to it (of course, it’s a horror story, so of course characters have to act stupidly). What elevates this a bit is the way it ends, which is cleverer and bleaker than you might expect. Pereira does solid but unspectacular work with the art, and it turns out to be a solid but unspectacular horror comic. Nothing wrong with that!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel”

Traveling to Mars (January) by Mark Russell (writer), Roberto “Dakar” Meli (artist), Chiara di Francia (colorist), Mattia Gentili (letterer), and Davide G.G. Caci (editor). $29.99, 220 pgs, Ablaze.

Russell’s satire isn’t terribly funny (which is fine), but it is more uplifting than a lot of what Russell has written, so there’s that. Ray has been chosen to be the first man on Mars because he’s terminally ill and the company that hired him simply needs him to claim it (the governments of the world, of course, are dragging their feet, so private companies step in). Everyone believes that Mars is rich with natural gas, and the company that gets there first can claim the entire planet and make lots of money (ignoring the fact that the Earth is on its last legs anyway). The series is about Roy’s journey, of course, but also about his life, and Russell zips back and forth in time to show how he got to this place. Of course, he discovers that things in space and on Mars aren’t quite what anyone expects, which is why the book offers a bit more hope than a lot of Russell’s books. It’s a pretty good comic, but it does lack a bit of the savagery of some of his earlier work, as Russell doesn’t make things on Earth too ridiculous (although, as we know, the current state of the U.S. is pretty resistant to satire, because whatever ridiculous thing you’ve thought of to criticize the country in fiction, someone has already done in real life) and he does make Roy an interesting and three-dimensional character, so he isn’t too nasty with him, either. It’s a softer story than what we usually get from Russell, but he still has a lot to say about the state of the world and what a person can do to retain or regain their dignity. Meli and Francia’s art is a bit over-rendered for my tastes, but it’s not terrible. Overall, a pretty good book. Maybe not quite as good as some of Russell’s work, but pretty good nevertheless.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Uncanny Valley volume 1 (March) by Tony Fleecs (writer), Dave Wachter (artist), Pat Brosseau (letterer), and Jon Moisan (editor). $17.99, 108 pgs, Boom! Studios.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from Uncanny Valley – I had read the descriptions, but maybe it just didn’t register with me or the descriptions were vague enough that I didn’t know what was going on, but I’ve read some good stuff from Fleecs and I’ve liked Wachter’s art for a while, so I figured I’d pick it. I wish I had known it was only 10 issues, because I imagine Boom! will bring out a nice hardcover of the entire series, but … oh well. What’s done is done.

Anyway, this is a really good comic. Oliver Peet is a weird 12-year-old kid who gets into weird situations that his school officials don’t appreciate, and his mother always has to come and discuss it with the principal. Well, it turns out that Oliver is, well, he’s a cartoon. Or sort-of a cartoon. His grandfather, Yosem – whoops, Pecos Peet, I mean – shows up when Oliver and his mother are attacked by cartoonish-looking crows, and Oliver gets separated from his mom and has to go on the run with his grandfather. There’s an evil cartoon, of course, and Oliver is important, of course, and it’s all very high-adventurous. There’s nothing too original here, even the concept, although it is a very fun concept. But Fleecs does a really good job telling it, and Wachter’s ability to switch styles between a very realistic, beautifully painted look to the extremely cartoony style of several characters (and different character styles, as well) makes the visual aspect of the book work very well. Sure, the beats are familiar, but that’s not terribly surprising – as I’ve noted, it’s hard to come up with plots, because they’ve all been done. But the way Fleecs and Wachter tell the story works very well. I’m looking forward to volume 2!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

The Wrong Earth volume 3: Dead Ringers (February) by Tom Peyer (writer), Jamal Igle (artist), Russ Braun (penciler), Juan Castro (inker), Lee Loughridge (colorist), Rob Steen (letterer), and Cory Sedlmeier (collection editor). $18.99, 130 pgs, Ahoy Comics.

Peyer continues to do good work with The Wrong Earth, as his examination of the two different kinds of superheroes – the Adam West Batman and the Frank Miller Batman, essentially – seems to bear endlessly entertaining fruit. Both “Dragonfly” versions are on Dragonflyman’s Earth in this volume, which is causing problems because Dragonfly really hates it but there doesn’t seem to be any way he can get back to his own dimension. Meanwhile, there’s a bad guy running around who can take on someone else’s identity completely, which causes confusion and problems in a world that already has confusion and problems thanks to the two iterations of the hero. Peyer continues to walk a fine line between the campy parts and the bleak parts, and like the great writers of the past, he gives us nice pieces of characterization on the fly without slowing the action down too much, which is pretty keen. Igle continues to do excellent work on art, and he and Peyer do an issue entirely made up of splash pages, which is a keen and low-key very difficult thing to do. I hope these two creators can keep doing this series, because it’s just a very good superhero comic with some nice analysis of the superhero phenomenon itself. That’s always fun!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

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Here’s all the money I’ve spent so far this year!

1 January: $184.81
8 January: $88.41
15 January: $44.20
22 January: $88.46
29 January: $240.32
5 February: $84.10
12 February: $44.21
19 February: $76.28
26 February: $76.31
5 March: $189.96
12 March: $197.84
19 March: $150.89
26 March: $273.16
2 April: $214.27
9 April: $40.74
16 April: $107.57
23 April: #143.07
30 April: $126.66

Money Spent in January: $405.88 (’24: $429.40; ’23: $500.55; ’22: $765.86; ’21: $397.35)
Money Spent in February: $280.90 (’24: $526.81; ’23: #325.60; ’22: $765.35; ’21: $679.20)
Money Spent in March: $811.85 (’24: $299.88; ’23: $593.64; ’22: $1231.66; ’21: $562.89)
Money Spent in April: $632.31 (’24: $602.78; ’23: $438.86; ’22: $1090.51; ’21: $651.46)

YTD: $2130.94 (’24: $1858.87; ’23: $1858.65; ’22: $3853.38; ’21: $2290.90)

I’m always trying to buy fewer comics, but I suspect the slight uptick in prices has kept my totals elevated. We shall see what the future brings!

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Well, all right, that’s that for stuff I read in the first four months of the year. Of course, now it’s the 20th of May and I haven’t started writing about this month yet, so who knows if I’ll ever catch up! That’s ok, though – it’s not like I’m trying to keep up too much with the major events of the DC and Marvel Universes, so you don’t need these reviews right away anyway!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this epic journey. I certainly hope it’s not necessary again – we seem to have fixed our blog problems for the moment, so let’s keep our fingers crossed! – and I can get back on track. I hope everyone is enjoying the springtime wherever you are … or, I suppose, the autumn, if you’re on that side of the world!!! Have a nice day, everyone!