The independent publishers actually dominate most of my
list. Take out the Vertigo and Before Watchmen stuff from DC and I bet almost
every week that I get more from the other segment then I do with the big two.
The first of the three is Nowhere Men #1 by Eric Stephenson and Nate Bellegarde. I enjoy picking up
various new series and giving them a try and this book was very reminiscent of
what I call “The Lost” school of writing. It stems from the TV show where
mysteries and ideas are strewn about and one wonders if or when they will ever
be explained. Given my contempt for Lost and the way it ended I have little
patience for the mysteries to be revealed. Nick Spencer is notorious with his
ability to do this and I wonder why I followed Morning Glories for so long.
Anyway this book is about four scientists who band together to open up the next
great corporation called World Corp. We open with them walking out to a press
conference and then have a two page spread giving us their backgrounds as a
magazine article. Next is a two page spread that says years later and some
monster is killing off AIM rejects. We jump to the boardroom as the three
members who are left (is the other guy dead or what?) and they are arguing over
where the company is going as the monster is their product. We get an ethics
argument of a sort and we see the company founders are now at odds with each
other. It appears to be many years in the future as they are portrayed to be
fifty plus or more years old. The next jump is an abrupt shift to a space
station where a virus has broken out and the group here is being told no one
gets off as they are now quarantined. At the end we get a two page newspaper
interview with the World Corp member who had quit. The timeframe that this occurred
in is ambiguous. It is also unclear how any of this stuff ties together and
what the f**k is going on. I mean if these guys had been together so long why
is it just now that they are falling about? Simon, the guy who wants to keep
the monster for profit, must have shown this type of morality for many years.
Then, what the heck is this space station thing and how does that tie into
everything. The most important credit missing from many new independent books
is the editor. I will hang out for another issue or two as I know a lot of
writers take time to pull their premise together, but I swear a good editor
could help get these guys to craft better first issues. Most readers are not as
easy going as I am to hang out for more than issue #1. It seems to me that a
solid editor is missing from in books all over the place. Hell I wish I had an
editor to review my work and help make it better. As a self editor I can tell
you I miss way too much and think that a good editor could vastly improve my
work. 
Speaking of hanging out and giving books a chance I’m back
for issue #2 of Bedlam by Nick Spencer and Riley Rossmo.
I choose this book strictly because it
has many of the flaws of Nowhere Men, but when I choose it as one to review I
had no clue I was getting Bedlam #1 in Nowhere Men. The net result is that these
two reviews have a similar complaint. Hire an editor. Hell I’ll help for free
and take a cut on the back end, a small percentage of the gross (never make
deals for net profits). Bedlam has Riley Rossmo’s art going for it. I love his
work. It has a scratchy quality to it that is unique. His story telling gets
better and better and anyone who follows him knows he has to be struggling with
some of the most obtuse writers to ever come down the pike. This book is of
course by the infamous (to me) Nick Spencer who seems to love the mystery
portion of his ideas. He tantalizes you with some neat concepts and some cool
moments but often never delivers the answers to all the damn questions. If it
was not for Rossmo I would drop the book, as it is I’m on for one more issue. I
will not make the Morning Glories mistake of continued hope of an explanation
of anything. A small aside is how the book touts Frazer Irving in the credits.
Frazer does very cool work, but no one else puts up the name of a cover artist like
he is part of the interior work. It feels cheap and like false advertising. Bedlam
has mysteries all over the place and murders and gore, secrets within secrets
and questions as to who is who. The book could be a great story, but I have no
faith the promise will be delivered on. I will get issue #3 in the hopes that
it starts to come together, but if I’m still wondering about everything at that
point I will drop the title.
The third book is Masks
#1 by Chris
Roberson and Alex Ross. I have not seen Alex do interiors on a
book for a look time. His photo realistic style is Neal Adams taken to the nth
degree. At times his work is amazing and the quality is always there. Other
times the book looks like a series of still pictures. I know, all comics are,
but most artists imbue a sense of a flow to the art and some feeling of
movement. You believe the characters are real. Often Alex’s work, while pure
artistic skill wise is great, can look like a photo of action figures posed to
do a scene. The story itself is very good and apparently “borrowed” from the
pulp novel call The Spider vs The Empire State. I added it to my Amazon wish
list if someone wants to buy the book for me. Anyway Roberson has taken the
idea and used it as a springboard to pull all of these heroes together. The
basic premise is pre-WWII New York is overtaken by the Justice party who are
criminals and crooks. They have passed laws and turned the city and state into
a police state. I enjoy the naming of the political party as the Justice party,
because like many of our laws today the naming is made to sell the idea
regardless of what the bill actually does or does not do (See the unpatriotic Patriot
Act as a prime example). The Orwellian nature of our government is frightening
at times. In this series our heroes have to fight for justice, but that means
defying the unjust law. It has a good feel to it and I look forward to the rest
of the series.
Part 4 coming up
later today.
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