Henchmen Fashion File: Kobra v. Solaris

It's a special double-shot of henchmen antics, thanks to the fact that that wacky cult-leader Kobra had his own series way back in the day and spent issues 2 and 3 attacking another super-villain  - not exactly a rare situation, but not one that happens every day. 

The Villains: 

Kobra: Just to keep things simple, I'm only going to refer to Kobra as he appears in the seven issues of his series, and not the 30-plus years of history that followed.

 

As you can see, Kobra is kind of a dick. This probably comes of having been raised as the leader/messiah of an Indian snake cult, who stole him from the hospital at birth. Thanks to their fanatical devotion, he made a few pretty good runs at taking over the world, and his early enemies included his own brother Aaron, PI Johnny Double and the Demon's pal Randu Singh. He also called people "witling" a lot.

Solaris, AKA Clifton Lacey, was a NASA scientist who specialized in solar radiation and really enjoyed his job, to the extent that when he was fired he, well, became a super-villain. 

Looking at the technology that Lacey came up with as he sought revenge, I have to think that maybe NASA wasn't thinking so clearly when they fired the guy. If only they'd kept him happy, he might have tricked out the space shuttle for them, and I know that I would have been a little more interested in becoming an astronaut if there was the possibility of getting to fire a death ray. Sure, the guy acts a bit crazy, but that's just passion!

Oh no wait. He's completely crazy.

The context of the Kobra/Solaris scrap, by the way, is that Kobra wants to steal Solaris' Heliotron, seen above, cradled tenderly in his arms. As with many of Kobra's plans, the sole purpose of this is to help him kill his own brother, because Kobra is also crazy.

The Henchmen:

Hey look, it's both sets of henchmen in a single image:

Though outwardly they might look similar - groups of identically-dressed men with below-average self-esteem and a gift for following orders - but they actually represent two distinct types of henchman. Solaris' guys (let's call them the Sunnys) are basically the same goons that DC villains have always hired, only wearing form-fitting leotards instead of suits and ties. witness a typical interaction between a typical Sunny and his boss:

Note the fact that this is a normal human conversation - Solaris doesn't call the guy "witling" or "imbecile" even once. It's just a guy and his boss, fleeing their secret HQ in a super-sweet rocket.

By contrast, the Kobra Cultists are evil religious fanatics - they probably don't even get paid for what they do, which frequently involves their grisly deaths anyway. They die in enormous quantities, and often by Kobra's own hand, which suggests that they either have a fantastic recruitment campaign or that their ranks are composed of roughly the stupidest people on the planet. I mean, would you join an organization in which this was the penalty for failing to find a small bracelet on a ruined bridge?

Attractiveness of Costume:

This is actually kind of tough, since both groups are essentially just wearing a palette-swapped version of their boss' costume - in the case of the Sunnys, the first of their boss' two costumes, seen above. Neither of them have the most terrific colour scheme at that, though red and yellow is astonishingly better than green and orange.

It all comes down to flair, really, and the Sunnys have very little. They do have those awesome holsters with the button-down flap that I love so well, but that just can't compete with the visual appeal of seeing snake men in togas running around with swords.

ADVANTAGE: Kobra.

Utility of Costumes:

It's clear from a glance that the Sunnys' costumes offer little-to-no protection. Why, just look at what happens when Kobra hits some of them with one of his patented venom-blasts:

Of course, the same could be said for the Cultists' duds:

That Kobra. An equal-opportunity venom-blaster to the core.

In the absence of protective benefits, I'm going to have to judge this based on the gadgets that the rank-and-file of each organization are given to slaughter each other with. You've already seen the Cultists' flying sabres, but since those didn't actually kill anyone I'm going to discount them - a non-flying sabre is ultimately going to be more useful than a flying one that doesn't work. So what else do they have?

Well, both groups have flying skateboards and laser guns, so it's still tied up. No, wait...

Laser blowgun for the win!

ADVANTAGE: Solaris

Budget for Costumes:

I'm tempted to give this to Solaris, since he obviously takes his guys to the same tailor that he goes to, but even though that might technically cost more money I am more impressed with what I have to assume is Kobra's method of clothing his followers. Based on what I know and can guess about the guy, Kobra has to have a whole branch of his organization devoted solely to making uniforms out of real cobras.

ADVANTAGE: Kobra

Chance for a Bonus Point - Does the Villain have a Lieutenant With a Marginally Cooler Costume and Maybe a Name?

Not really, but they do both have robots:

Kobra's is named Servitor, and he found it in a meteor, but I just can't help liking Solaris' Robot Defender a bit better:

There's just something about the way that it looks like Solaris put it together out of spare parts on the weekend that endears it t me. It would totally win the bonus point,

 

... except that Kobra defeats it with a robot snake that flies out of his toga, and that is manifestly more cool.

BONUS POINT: Kobra

Sorry Solaris, but you lose. Better luck next time.

May I present the winner of the first-ever Henchman Fashion Files Fashion-off:

 

 Kobra, the man without irony!

More Cavemen, Less Funerals.

 Oh man, I don't want to come off all negative or anything, but this week's comics pile nearly defeated me. There just seemed to be an excess of unpleasantness in the May 12 releases, many of which were filled with sadly ironic ads for linewide themes like Brightest Day and The Heroic Age. I saved the best for the bottom of the pile, but I'll get to that in a bit. In the meantime...

Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis #1: Even though the previous Warren Ellis arc on Astonishing X-Men (with artist Phil Jimenez) still hasn't wrapped, Marvel has decided to relaunch this series as part of its new Astonishing line (along with last week's Spider-man/Wolverine, which was considerably more fun). Now teaming with Canadian artist Kaare Andrews, this new title sees the mutant supergroup investigating a volatile series of mutant births in Africa. Ellis hammers the reader with all the research he's done, dropping all kinds of helpful trivia about various African nations in place of, oh, I don't know, plot movement or action, and has Beast admonish Cyclops for referring to African towns; "Africa is a continent, not a country", Beast snarks at him. True, but it's not wrong to say "African towns", right? You can refer to European towns, and you wouldn't be wrong--it's a bit broad, but there are towns in Europe, are there not? None of this matters, though, since this comic is really all about how many shots of Emma Frost's enormous cans Kaare Andrews can fit onto every page:

What do you think of that, Boob Guy From Dazzler: The Movie?

Yup. Incidentally, the full script for issue one is included in the back, perhaps to prove that Ellis didn't insist on all of those crazy boob shots, or maybe just to help justify the $3.99 price tag. 

Titans: Villains For Hire Special #1: I don't wanna spoil anything for anybody, but this relaunch of the Titans brand (the name now belongs to a group of assassins brought together by Deathstroke to hunt heroes, I guess?), is essentially a drawn-out hunting and killing of a character that DC put a lot of support behind just a few short years ago, a character that was carrying on a superhero name while bringing some ethnic diversity to the DCU. Well, the previous owner of that superhero name is back in action, so clearly, the only thing left is to give the poor guy who kept it warm for him an exceedingly gory death scene. Great. Now we have to deal with the inevitable weepy funeral and ensuing hunt to bring the killers to justice. I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting pretty sick of those.

Justice League: Generation Lost #1: Speaking of things I'm getting sick of, how many damn times do I have to see the scene, repeated in this very issue, where Captain Atom absorbs a bunch of dangerous radiation and flies into space to explode? Well, at least once more, apparently. I like these characters, I like Aaron Lopresti's art, but this looks like it's also going down the "hunt for justice" route as well, as the old Giffen JL gang bands together to track down Maxwell Lord and get some satisfaction for Blue Beetle's murder. By the way, there's a preview in the back of a lot of the DC books this week for the new Green Arrow series (what is this, his third relaunch this decade now?), that is a repeat of that tired old standby--the sexy young lady being pursued by a bunch of would-be rapists/murderers, stopped in the nick of time by the gritty vigilante. One of the rapists says something gross like "don't wear yourself out, you've still got a lot of work to do tonight!'. The Dark Knight Returns was almost 25 years ago now, and people are still ripping off that "chicken legs" scene! 

Siege #4: Here's what I learned from this delayed series finale (whose plot points were somewhat spoiled by some of the more timely tie-ins): when you're Loki and you're being killed/crushed/eaten or something by the Sentry or Void or whatever, the noise you make is "HHAASRRGH!". Also, when you're Norman Osborn and you've just bonked Captain America on the head and you're running away like a spaz, the noise you make is "NIH Nguh!". And finally, when you're the Sentry and you're supposed to be totally unstoppable and indestructible and powered by a million exploding suns, all it takes is Thor hitting you with his hammer to completely destroy you and turn you into a crispy skeleton. Too little plot spread over too many tie-ins was the big problem here. How many plot points actually mattered here? Maybe five or six, across like 35 tie-ins? Nice art, though.

Amazing Spider-Man #631: Something potentially awful and distressing, especially for longtime Spidey fans, may have happened at the end of this issue. Something that potentially ruins two (maybe even three) of Webhead's supporting cast pretty much forever. Something that, if it DID happen, will make me really, really mad. However, this is one of those Chris Bachalo issues where the art is extremely weird and confusing, so I'm not actually sure if it happened or not. We'll see, but it's not looking good.

Batman: The Return Of Bruce Wayne #1: Okay, so it seemed like most of the comics I read this week were filled with rape, murder, destruction, and giant squashy boobs, but thankfully I saved this one for last. It teams up two of my favourite creators--Grant Morrison and Chris Sprouse--to tell the story of what exactly happened to Bruce Wayne after he was banished to the dawn of time by Darkseid's Omega Effect in Final Crisis. It features a timelost Bruce fashioning a Batman suit out of the hide of a giant prehistoric bat, finding himself a stone-age Robin, and facing down an earlier incarnation of immortal villain Vandal Savage. And man, was it ever just what the doctor ordered. This thing worked on multiple levels; as a satisfying continuation of Morrison's epic take on the Batman series, as a sequel to Final Crisis, and the latest in the kind of story where Batman just plain takes charge and kicks all the right asses in whatever era or setting he finds himself in, no matter how the odds are stacked against him. I'll have to re-read Final Crisis to learn exactly where that crazy rocket with all the DCU artifacts fits in, and I do kind of wish that this story was taking place in the pages of the monthly Batman title, but these are pretty minor complaints. This comic was ridiculous and awesome and I can't wait for the next one. Comics need to be more crazy and fun like this and less about a bunch of heroes crying at a funeral before going off to avenge Sue Dibny/Ted Kord/J'onn J'onzz/whoever.

This Movie Gets Two Thumbs Down!

How do I let myself get talked into these things? One of my regular customers at Strange Adventures, Michael Coll, recently bought a bunch of Marvel graphic novels off eBay—you know, the ones from the Eighties that featured original stories in a cool oversized squarebound format? These upscale editions were usually reserved for important stories (The Death of Captain Marvel, The New Mutants) or high profile creative teams (Miller and Sienkiewicz on Daredevil: Love and War, Starlin and Wrightson on Hulk/Thing: The Big Change). Every once in a while, though, a particular project made it into this format that really didn’t warrant the treatment. I’m talking about stuff like Super Boxers, The Aladdin Effect, and the book I’m here to discuss today—Dazzler: The Movie. Y’see, Mike was buying a bunch of good stuff, and this book was offered to be thrown in for a mere dollar, so he went for it. Afterwards, he decided that it was the worst Marvel comic he had ever read, and apparently wanted to share the pain. He brought it in to the store and told me I should review it. Unflinchingly, I agreed, although deep down I think I already knew I would regret it.

 For those of you who don’t know, Dazzler was a character who debuted in the Uncanny X-Men during the Dark Phoenix Saga, a mutant with the power to transmute sound into light. A high-profile Disco-themed nightclub sensation, Dazzler (whose real name was Alison Blaire) was not publicly known to be a mutant, even though she was pals with the X-Men. The character was basically created by committee at Marvel to take advantage of the popularity of Disco; unfortunately, by the time the character finally appeared, Disco was pretty much dead. That didn’t stop Marvel from giving the character her own ongoing series, one that perennially struggled in the sales department (as well as the fans giving a shit department). Near the end of the series’ run, Marvel decided to release Dazzler: The Movie as their twelfth original graphic novel, telling the story of Alison Blaire being outed as a mutant. The book was written by then-Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter, which explains why such a lousy book actually made it to publication, with dull, workmanlike art by Frank Springer and Vince Colletta (my least favourite inker of all time, by the way).

 

The highlight, really the only interesting thing about this book, is Bill Sienkiewicz’s eye-catching cover. He was truly at the top of his game at this point, even though he clearly hadn’t read the book—I have no idea who the other characters on this cover are, ‘cause they sure don’t appear inside.

 The story begins with Alison Blaire working at a Hollywood gym, where she catches the eye of a rich creep named Eric Beale. He tries to proposition Ali, who doesn’t go for it. Beale gets around this little speedbump by buying the gym, insisting that Ali now has to date him (at the very least). Alison quits, opting instead to go out for juice with a smitten youngster named Freddy. After much whining about his single status, Alison tries to give the guy a pep talk…

 

Oh, come on, Freddy. You’re not a nerd. You don’t even have a pocket protector! You’re clearly a dweeb, or at the very least, a spaz. Anyway, Alison boosts his confidence with some well-chosen compliments and a friendly yet passionate smooch.

 

That, in case you're wondering, is the sound of Freddy’s boner. We now switch scenes to the home of a Sinatraesque crooner named Roman Nekoboh (read backwards: Hoboken Namor?), who I guess must have been a supporting character in the Dazzler series. He’s plotting to win Alison over while getting ready for his day—I’ll spare you the montage of him getting dressed. It’s pretty damn disgusting. He surprises Alison at her apartment with a friendly home invasion:

 

Roman quickly puts the smooth on Alison, but it doesn’t go so well.

 

What’s her problem, anyway? Who wouldn’t want to come home to a guy dressed like the millionaire from Gilligan’s Island who proceeds to destroy half her stuff while trying to rape her? Alison throws him out, but the next day Roman accosts her from his car. Alison rebuffs him once again, but this time, Roman isn’t taking no for an answer.

 

Thanks for the traffic tip, Ali. This has been a very special issue of Spidey Super Stories.

 Our heroine blows out the wheels of Roman’s car with her laser light powers, causing him to exit the vehicle and chase her down a crowded street. When this tactic fails, he fakes a heart attack, which finally gets her to go out to dinner with him (Freddy really should have been around to take notes—clearly, this is the way to win Alison’s affections). Over dinner, Roman convinces Ali to let him help with her career, promising to make her a movie star. She agrees, and is taken under Roman’s wing. Soon, she’s moved in with him, and the two are making all the tabloids. Eventually…

 

Admittedly, that does look like a pretty fun party. They’ve got noisemakers and everything! In the middle of the day, even! Unfortunately, the financial backing for the movie project comes from Eric Beale, which makes Alison understandably nervous…

 

You mean, Beale wants to use his wealth and influence to get you into bed? What kind of self-respecting woman would allow a creepy older gadabout to…oh. Never mind. As the project moves forward, Alison gets more bitchy and self-involved, as evidenced by her perpetual drinking and smoking. Catching herself in the mirror, she becomes disgusted with what she’s become, and strips off all her clothes in a stupidly symbolic gesture (the mirror thing is a recurring motif in the book—every once in a while, she talks to her own reflection like a mental patient). Then, this happens!

 

Whoa, sidebum! See, here’s the largest of the book’s many, many problems: a lot of the time, it’s a simplistic morality tale that appears to have been written for eight-year olds (see Alison’s earlier observation about U-turns), but then there’s implied sex, substance abuse, and nudity! It turns out Roman is busting in on Alison’s naked ruminations to tell her that he has publicly outed her as a mutant, hoping to stir up publicity for her upcoming movie. Alison is outraged, but agrees to demonstrate her powers for the hardworking, dedicated, noble, truth-seeking media:

 

Uh, right. Which one are you, Woodward or Bernstein? Anyway, Alison’s powers frighten the assembled media like she was a sexy King Kong, causing a near riot.

 

Well, to be fair, Ali, you are kind of dressed like a Dracula. The movie finally goes into production, with extra pressure now on Alison. She feels that she is now being forced to represent all mutantkind, and she wants the film to reflect the idea that mutant powers can be used for the betterment of humanity. Perhaps a nuanced fable about race relations, warning against the dangers of discrimination?

 

Or not. Incidentally, Alison, you're not the director, so you don't get to call "Action", dummy. The whole thing goes pear-shaped when the tide of public sentiment turns against Alison and Roman, probably when some early footage of this turd got leaked would be my guess. Alison eventually learns that her contract will turn all control of her future career over to Eric Beale, so she destroys it and the one existing copy of her finished movie, thank goodness. Her life and career once again in her hands, Alison says goodbye to Roman and faces the future with a smile. Sheesh.

 I can’t imagine what it must have been like to spend $6.95 (or $7.95 Canadian) on this book back in 1984. That would have been the equivalent of around twenty-five bucks in 2010 money! I don’t know if I can say that this was the worst Marvel comic I’ve ever read, but it’s pretty damn lousy. Although it did raise the question of whether or not we can all put aside our petty biological differences and live together on this planet in peace and harmony.

 

I’ll take that as a yes.

Well, Dang

My post for today just completely fell apart on me and I don't have time to work up another, so you're just going to have to content yourself with this image, deemed by myself, and esteemed Batmanologist (the esteeming is also self-generated) to be one of the greatest costumes ever worn in Gotham City. From Batman No. 234:

She only made a one-panel appearance and her only role in the story was to be threatened by a clown while riding around on a hot dog float, but Mustard-Hat Lady has found a place in my heart. I like to envision some fairly unlikely alternate universe in which she defeats the clowns on her own and joins the Batman Family in their never-ending vigilante crusade. I'll bet that Condiment King gets a bit more respect in that universe, too.

"John Buys Comics!" he exclaimed.

Hellboy in Mexico

Ahhhh…

I have no idea when I first encountered the idea of Hellboy spending some time fighting monsters in Mexico with three luchadore brothers. It may have been as recently as last year in the Hellboy Companion or it might have been hinted at in a letters page back in 2002. The exact date is, in fact, immaterial because I have been craving this so hard since whenever it was that it felt like forever ago.

And now it’s here! And it’s good, as all Hellboy one-shots are. I think that it’s a natural law, as-yet unquantified by our science. It’s not terrifically deep, of course, but who needs deep, especially when the other series in the Hellboy universe are concerned with portents of doom and the deferral of monstrous destiny. As much as I love all of that, sometimes it’s nice to sit down with some old-school monster-punching action.

That’s not to say that this book is only about punching. There’s enough abridged exploration of loyalty, friendship and vengeance here that it could have made a fair-sized miniseries. But it didn't have to be: everything is there and everything is fantastic. The punching and assorted moves that I no longer know the names of (early 90s Johnathan is slightly ashamed of this) are executed with admirable skill, even when not compared to books in which fight scenes are mere bundles of unresolvable limbs. It is wonderfully and abundantly clear what each character is up to in this book.

izombie No. 1

There’s a pretty good chance that you caught the preview for this that was floating around the last month or so but just in case, here’s the skinny: it’s written by Chris Robeson and drawn by Michael Allred, and it’s about a girl who is a zombie, but not the corpse-lookin’-lurch-around-the-countryside type, just a bit pale, a bit dead. The catch is that unless she eats a fresh human brain each month, she will become the lurching and mindless sort of zombie. To facilitate her pursuit of brains, Gwen (that’s her name) works as a gravedigger.

The preview also set up the fact that there would be mystery-solving in this comic, as Gwen must placate the echos of the people whose brains she eats, absorbed during that super-gross process. What I did not know ahead of time was that this was going to be a girl detective kind of story, complete with Sixties-era ghost sidekick, nerdy were-dog love interest and crypt HQ! Even if I hadn’t read old Nancy Drew and Trixie Beldon adventures throughout my formative years, I would be all over this.

I don't really know what else to say. If fun writing, Allred art and plucky supernatural girls solving mysteries isn't enough to get you interested in this one then I guess that we're very different people.

Superf*ckers

How happy was I to see this collection? SO HAPPY. I used to have access to the individual issues of this comic but then lost them in what can only be described as a messy roommate divorce. What fun to have them again!

Superf*ckers is an incredibly satisfying book, essentially about what a group of super-powered teenagers would probably really be like, and while it’s certainly not what I want to encounter when I pick up an issue of Legion of Super-Heroes it’s nonetheless very cathartic to read about over-indulgence, petty politicking, mind games and misfiring hormones in a similar context. I was a pretty innocuous teen, but I'm pretty certain that given the chance and the powers I'd have been smoking grote and engaging in ethically questionable behaviour just as readily as Jack Krak or Orange Lightning.

All the old clichés get illustrated, Kochalka-style: tryouts, super-romance, disgusting sidekicks, too many rules. I think that it gains a lot by being adorable and brightly-coloured as well - not having to waste energy on being grossed out and offended leaves a lot more for delighted clapping and squeals of glee.

Sparta U.S.A. No. 3

THIRD ISSUE RECAP: Sparta is a town in… another dimension or a fantasy land or the future, I’m not sure. Or maybe someplace else. Wherever it is located, it appears to be a football-obsessed small American town. Look a little closer, though, and there are a lot of strange things about the place, like the fact that its citizens are encouraged to get ahead by any means necessary, up to and including murder, as long as they don’t get caught. The people of Sparta don’t know anything about sexual reproduction - their babies are delivered on a semi-annual basis by the Maestro, their sinister blue Governor. And nobody leaves town because they’ll probably be eaten by yeti.

The hero of the book, Godfrey McLaine, has left town and learned about the birds and the bees and so forth, and now he's come back in order to free the people from the Maestro. So far this has involved getting his ass handed to him by the entire town (who just wanted to watch football, dammit), but he subsequently formed a militia out of the only people in town willing to have more faith in him than the Maestro: all of his former lovers.

Having written this out I now realize that it is all very strange. I assure you, however, that it is strange in a good way. Every issue has more yeti than the last!

Brightest Day No. 1 - Nobody said "Brightest Day", so one point to them.  

Batman and Robin No. 12 - Good job, Grant Morrison. You caught me completely off-guard.

Astro City: Dark Age Book Four No. 4 - Holy poo! Dark Age is done! Not that I didn’t enjoy it but it must be said: I am incredibly excited to read some

Orc Stain No. 3 - Fully half of this issue reads like a video game, in the best possible sense. That is, not like most comics based on video games. It’s like… like when you’ve been playing a game for a while and you’re on a level that’s giving you some trouble and then suddenly you just nail it. You fly through the level like it was nothing. That is exactly what the action in this book felt like to me. Astonishingly good.

Secret Six No. 21 - Hey, Dwarfstar! Always good to see someone keep on being a super-villain even after the series they started out in was cancelled. Also: there is a joke in this issue that is so good/bad that I guffawed, though subsequently I learned that it was impossible to explain to someone who doesn’t read comics, no matter how fast you talk or how many times you assure them that what you're talking about makes sense.

Batman Confidential No 44 - My, but that Sam Keith story was interminable. It’s good to get back to reading short, unconnected Batman stories. Hey, check it out, it's the second-best zombie from Return of the Living Dead!

"I Presume Those Are Tears Of Happiness?"

Me: “Hey, Dan Clowes has a new graphic novel coming out from Drawn & Quarterly! It’s called Wilson!”

Tiina: “Oh yeah? Is it another story about an isolated, socially awkward weirdo?”

Me: “…”

 Okay, so Clowes’ new book isn’t exactly a big departure for the Eightball cartoonist. Like Ice Haven, it’s composed of a series of shorter strips that, when read together, compose a larger narrative. Like Ghost World, it wanders the streets of a small town that is slowly turning into yet another strip mall. And yes, like pretty much everything else Clowes has done, it stars an arrogant, acid-tongued loner who longs for the comfort of simpler times while looking down his nose at everyone around him. There are certain themes and tropes that we’ve come to expect from the trailblazing cartoonist who, along with Chris Ware, Adrian Tomine, and Peter Bagge, came to define alternative comics in the 1990s, and honestly, a huge departure would have been fairly jarring at this point. It would be like Lars Von Trier suddenly deciding to make a G-rated comedy.

The star of Wilson is an aging, bitter malcontent, disgusted with nearly everything and everyone around him, with the exception of his beloved dog Pepper. When his father—his last living blood relative (that he knows of at this point)—dies of cancer, a suddenly despondent Wilson attempts to reconnect with his ex-wife, who informs him that the two have a now-teenaged daughter who was given up for adoption at birth. The tentatively-reconciled couple track down their daughter—a sullen creep not unlike her old man—and what begins as an uneasy family reunion almost casually morphs into a kidnapping. This is followed by incarceration, a marriage of convenience, further isolation, and a final, long-sought-after, last-page spiritual revelation that has most likely arrived way too late.

 

Each page of Wilson reads as an individual comic strip, rendered in its own style and colour palette, capped by a punchline that is usually either profane or heartbreaking, or both. The various cartoon styles keep things fresh as the impossible-to-like protagonist becomes more and more unpleasant. That’s not to say that Clowes doesn’t manage to evoke some sympathy for his title character—there’s a devastating (yet still kind of funny) scene near the end when the visibly aging Wilson desperately attempts to connect with his grandson via Skype; Wilson chirps happily at the kid, who is only interested in “playing the catapilla game” on the computer. Wilson is a character who, like Enid in Ghost World, willfully refuses to become a member of society, perennially disgusted by the dying bookstore market, the internet, and the proliferation of nail salons in his neighbourhood. We laugh at Wilson’s antisocial observations, while recognizing that his is a cautionary tale; if you stand outside the rest of the world long enough, you may be forever denied re-entry.

 

Wilson is Clowes’ first book with Canadian publisher Drawn & Quarterly, and it’s a handsome hardcover volume.  However, the $21.95 price tag for 77 pages of story may be a little off-putting for some consumers. It may make you long for the days when guys like Clowes actually put out individual issues to be collected in a volume like this later, but that’s just the way the business is headed, I guess—when your periodicals only usually move a few thousand copies or so, it makes more financial sense to put the whole work out as a completed volume. Still, given the choice between several ad-ridden installments of the latest Marvel or DC crossover or an attractive, oversized hardcover that someone clearly put a few years worth of work into, I’d go with Wilson any day. The territory it covers may be familiar, but Clowes certainly knows his way around it by now.