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Column:
Special Feature
Extended Flashback: 2007 in Review
By Adam McGovern
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(Continued from Page 1)
Short Story of the Year:
“Monster” by David Morris (with penciler Dek Baker), in Dead by Dawn #2 [Scar Comics]
The polls I vote in in my secret identity as a music pundit ask for
“work that made an impact” in 2007, and this U.K. rarity
from late ’06 certainly made an impact on me once it found its
way here. In a riff on the disposable yet entrancing Lee/Kirby/Ditko
monster comics of the late ’50s/early ’60s, David Morris delivered a
gem of pop psychodrama whose “twist ending” comes from what the masses
never realize and what the monster himself fears.
Best Collection or Reissue
(tie): Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus [DC];
James Sturm’s America: God, Gold and Golems [Drawn & Quarterly]
Two ways of preserving the past and informing the future: The
faux-newsprint Fourth World
Omnibus books re-create the production
values and restricted formats of Kirby’s time and show how much
he accomplished within them; the collected non-mainstream stories of
Sturm show his gift for seeing into long-ago moments that formed who
we still are and understanding emotional constants we still contend
with.
Rookie Juggernaut Award: Virgin Comics
If we’re nearing an Indian Century then a Virgin Age of
Comics will fit right in. Grounded in the culture of the country the
world is watching and wise to the essence of comics quality, the
folkloric goldmine and pantheon of talent this company had to draw on
positioned it well for an extensive young line of non-spandex
adventures that feel both rooted and refreshing. Few imprints have
offered so much diversity so fast, from the Val Lewton-esque
ancient-curse tragedy Snake Woman and the metaphysical
martial-arts saga The Sadhu to the resourceful comedic
Matrix variation Walk In, the vampire war-comic
Virulents, the geopolitical thrillers 7 Brothers and
Gamekeeper, the Prohibition melodrama Dock Walloper and
more. Started by badboy billionaire Richard Branson and heavily
involving maverick mystic Deepak Chopra, the company’s got a
compelling story to tell behind the scenes too. A bankroll like
Branson’s can buy a lot of ambition, but in this case it secures
some of the best creators both well-known (Garth Ennis, Jeff Parker,
Zeb Wells) and new-to-Americans (Saurav Mohopatra, Dean Ruben
Hyrapiet, Abhishek Singh). Significantly, there’s nothing close
to a “shared universe,” unless you count the continuum of
Indian belief and legend which is seen from so many angles it
(smartly) seems like the work of different publishers, and, while
various movie deals are in the works and studio/print alliances are in
place (like a new collaborative line with the SCI FI Channel), Virgin
cares at least as much about comics-for-comics’-sake. The
pitfalls of continuity-fixation and disposable Hollywood fodder are
so-far avoided, and an example of how comics can be an end in
themselves for entertainment giants is thankfully provided.
Assembly-line production processes sometimes result in perfunctory
visuals, the flagship epic Devi was dumbed down in its prime,
and a Jenna Jameson tie-in comic is the kind of bid for attention you
should be careful about wishing for, but intriguing narrative and
inspiring imagery predominate, and in the overwhelming balance Virgin
is good comics and good news. [www.virgincomics.com]
Inker of the Year: Jimmy Palmiotti
There’s all the artists who ink themselves, or digitally
reproduce their pencils and paints. Then there’s Palmiotti,
period. No inker has ever preserved and reinforced the strengths of so
diverse a range of artists’ styles, at such volume and quality.
Why do we even have the category anymore?
Best Cover Artist: James Jean,
The Umbrella Academy
[Dark Horse]
A paradoxical category to include (though everybody now does)
— a lavish or dynamic cover image seldom by the interior artist
or illustrative of the story inside is more an advertisement for
itself than for the book. But Jean’s elegant, otherworldly and
design-forward images, seemingly painted in mist and misery and
twisting their figures between pulp ideal and abstract symbol,
perfectly extended the prismatic perspectives on heroism and reality
from the pages within.
Colorist of the Year (tie): Mukesh Singh; Dom Regan
We’re in a golden age of comics colorists — the ease
and capacity of computers allow for a lot of automatic and anonymous
perfection, but innovators like Dave Stewart, Lee Loughridge, Michelle
Madsen and Laura Allred have harnessed high technology for true
personality and possibility. Even in this company artist-colorist
Mukesh Singh took a leap in a clearly new direction on Virgin
Comics’ Gamekeeper. Painted comics typically don’t
escape the single-image stasis of the old pulp and paperback covers
they seem to homage, but if, as has rightly been said, Gene Colan
“paints with a pencil,” Singh drew with a paintbrush,
fully working up his line with a rare kinetic fluidity and suffusing
scenes with cinematic color fields which materialized moods and
transported characters (and readers) in ways that made the most of
the medium’s devices while never seeming to manipulate their
effects. Meanwhile, Dom Regan’s hallucinatory cosmic textures in
Omega Men gave spectacle a good name while helping keep some
already very ornate art from being overpowered by its own detail; in
the super-psychodrama Infinity Inc. he had the less complex yet
harder task of building dread and identification in subtly rising
crises and pressurized ex-human characters. Regan’s bilious
nocturnal atmospheres and scorching ideal cityscapes set storytelling
tones impressively, and the highlights on his characters’ very
skin seem not like light and shadow but life pulsing from within. An
important new talent, embracing major-league capabilities with a good
sense of how far not to go.
Next: Page 3 of 6
—CCdC— Read all of ComicCritique.Com’s columns, old and new,
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