Guy Davis (1)Reseñas

I tried to continue with the series but I realized that each volume is basically the same story but with a different killer. I'm ok with stopping at this volume and not finishing it. I understand the origin of The Sandman and that's cool. But I can't keep reading the same story over and over again. Life is too short.

I liked this volume much better than the second one. In this one, there is a female serial killer targeting and killing men in extreme and weird ways. Once again, Wesley a.k.a. the Sandman is on the job to find out who the killer is and bring them to justice. This time I figured out the killer pretty early on but it was still a great story. Good graphics. The only thing is that Dian is getting a wee bit annoying in this one and I hope she calms down in the next volume.

My review of this book can be found on my YouTube Vlog at:

https://youtu.be/HsyGXYHBHTc

Enjoy!

SOUČÁST HELLBOY UNIVERSA

Na úsvitu žabího moru Ú. P. V. O. spojuje své síly s armádou a společně se pouštějí do pátrání a ničení žabích hnízd, roztroušených po celých Státech. Ocitají se tak na nejrůznějších, mnohdy bizarních místech, odstavenou lodí po- čínaje a prapodivným církevním shromážděním konče, nemluvě o místě, kde Hellboy na žabí netvory narazil poprvé – v troskách kdysi honosného sídla Cavendish Hall.

Probably closer to a 3.5 than anything else. This is a bunch of one-off stories featuring the BPRD shooting, blowing up, immolating, etc. the frog monsters from the past several stories with a few surprises along the way. The Johan story is good and creepy, and the Liz Sherman story is kind of sweet (and also creepy), but for the most part this just feels like a lot of filler and loose ends getting tied that didn't really need it.

Builds on the first set of stories in a really satisfying way. Guy Davis really comes into his own artistically here as well - there's a slight refinement on the designs from the first volume that's really nice. (Although Wagner's original pitch at the end of the book feels like we missed out on an even more over-the-top version of this, sadly.)

A bit of a mixed bag. The first story, The Tarantula, is really excellent - Guy Davis's style is kind of unusual compared to other comics I've read (it reminds me more of the cartoons you'd see in The New Yorker or something), but it fits the story really well. Matt Wagner's switching between the perspective of Dian, The Sandman, and Dodds (who really feel like two different characters despite being the same person) works really well.

The later stories are a bit of a mixed bag. The Face has a great concept for a villain, but sticks him in a plot about Chinatown gang wars that's not very interesting and often feels like it's walking the line between a period piece and another yellow peril story. The Brute just turns up the dials on all the worst parts of The Face, and that's all I'll say about it. An interesting start based on the strength of the first story alone, but there's a lot of room for improvement.

Dammit my copy only has like 1/3 of the stories DAMMIT. Too good to leave me in the middle like that. Sherlock as a punk woman, I mean come on. It's amazing.

Rereading this & its companion volume due to the recent unfortunate passing of Gary Reed, its cocreator. Exemplary Sherlock pastiche with more punk than steampunk influence in its alt-history & highly recommended for mystery fans, LGBTQ readers, or those who just love great world building in cracking good stories.

Rereading this & its companion volume due to the recent unfortunate passing of Gary Reed, its cocreator. Exemplary Sherlock pastiche with more punk than steampunk influence in its alt-history & highly recommended for mystery fans, LGBTQ readers, or those who just love great world building in cracking good stories.

Back in history we go, again. This volume is mostly a rehash of what's been going on, demonstrated with some little side stories of the fighting of frogs that we hadn't seen before. Kind of boring since we've already dealt with the frog battles on smaller levels, but they were still good stories. I was quite fond of the last chapter, 5, with Liz and a new girl as the focus.

I really loved Herb Trimpe and Karl Moline's art, and am sad Herb wasn't able to ink his own, as I much prefer his style to Guy Davis'. I enjoyed John Severin and Peter Snejbjerg's art also, and more especially Bjarne Hansen's color work on Snejbjerg's art, a couple spots in particular were exquisite, like the couple two-page spreads near the end of his chapter.½

Loved. Loved loved loved. Captivating and chilling and heartbreaking and wonderful and dangerous.

I'm not really sure why I enjoy this series as much as I do. It feels at once horribly dated and incredibly modern, which is a pretty strange trick to pull off. But Wesley Dodds and Dian Belmont are appealing main characters, effectively blending the cultural attitudes and biases of the 1930s with a refreshing streak of progressivism. Dian, in particular, manages to feel completely of her time period, while simultaneously being a first-class feminist.

The books are often more than a little heavy-handed, reminding me more than a little of Mad Men in the way in which they throw the bigotry of the past in their audiences faces, but the more modern touches (the violence and sex in particular) effectively counter-balance any high-handed moralism.

War on Frogs could do with some slowing down and introspection. It's a series of short stories taken from the earlier years of the Frog War, and it's a pleasure to see Roger and Daimio again. So far, it's been rather episodic and big-frog-go-boom, which is not why I read these books. It's struck me how far from Mignola's original creepy-beautiful/occult-humour the series has gone. That's okay, in a way - it needed to grow in different directions - but this isn't a good entry so far; too crash-bang, not funny enough, and too superficial.

Note, guys: here's a reason Mignola didn't favour a rear angle on Roger. We don't want to see his grey butt hanging out with the big metal ring dangling in front. Not everyone is Mike Mignola, but please, some dignity here.

The other DC characters come thick and fast in this volume, which features Ted Knight (the future Starman), the Mist (a future Starman villain), Jim Corrigan (the future Spectre), and the Crimson Avenger, not to mention a passing reference to the Flash himself. I don't know if Sandman Mystery Theatre was in trouble or what, but it's a little jarring in what had been a fairly self-contained series. Wagner and Seagle work most of them in just fine, though; Knight, the Mist, and Corrigan don't have their powers yet, while the Crimson Avenger doesn't have any at all. (Oddly, he's the most disconcerting-- with his flamboyant posturing and public presence, he's a very different kind of superhero to the Sandman.)

Both stores in this volume are good but disjointed. "The Mist" suffers from the same problem as "The Hourman," in that the tale of the other characters is often more interesting than Wesley's; I loved the rise and fall of the villainous scientist known as the Mist. Meanwhile, Wesley is rebuilding his relationship with Dian and investigating a series of mysterious crimes, but he only finds the Mist by accident. Plus there's just too many shady characters to keep track of. It's not a satisfying mystery, but I still enjoyed reading it.

"The Phantom of the Fair" takes the Sandman back to where he began in the Golden Age-- the New York World's Fair-- and it's a neat story, especially in how it shows Wesley confronting his own homophobia. The explanation for it is a bit too pat, though: he saw a friend of his forced to give a man oral sex when they were children. The roots of such prejudice are much less easily traced and destroyed than that. I did like all the ruminations on utopia in this story. This story isn't really a mystery as such, though; Lieutenant Burke does more work on the case than Wesley again. (Though it's one of the most enjoyable Burke stories in Sandman Mystery Theatre so far. I love it when Burke is allowed to be an all-out asshole.) So again, The Mist and The Phantom of the Fair is a mixed bag; Wagner and Seagle seem to have a difficult job balancing the personal plots and the mystery plots without compromising the latter.

Sandman Mystery Theatre: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »

Like The Face and The Brute, Dr. Death and The Night of the Butcher includes two complete tales of the Sandman, a.k.a. Wesley Dodds, as he fights crime in the dark underbelly of New York City. And as if the writers read my objection to the fact that every victim in this series deserves it, the book even opens up the murder of an innocent man! (Um, yay?) But as was the case in the last couple stories, the murder mystery (which as usual is coincidentally linked to Dian Belmont's social circle) is a sideshow to the developments in the relationship between Wesley and Dian. Dian has figured out that Wesley is the Sandman, but doesn't quite know what to do about it. And Wesley doesn't quite know how to integrate her needs into his already-structured life.

Wesley actually has very little to do with solving "The Night of the Butcher" especially, but that's okay, as it allows Lieutenant Burke to really shine, along with Hubert Klein. But as Wes's personal life disintegrates, so does his crimefighting one-- Burke discovers the radio hidden under his desk that transmits all his conversations to the Sandman! What's a masked mystery man to do? And what's Dian to do? There are no easy answers here, and the series swings back and forth between tender and painful, as they try to negotiate their strange new status quo. Especially effective here are the recurring dreams of the Sandman, a staple of the series from the beginning, that in this one hit a new high in disturbingness, probably thanks to some nice comic book tricks (Scott McCloud would be proud).

The only downside to this volume is that Guy Davis only does layouts for "Dr. Death," with the somewhat inferior Vince Locke on art. On the other hand, the brutal fight at the end of "The Night of the Butcher" is probably the series' best action sequence so far, nicely showcasing the Sandman's determination, Lieutenant Burke's antagonism, and Dian Belmont's passion. Sandman Mystery Theatre continues its string of successes.

Sandman Mystery Theatre: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »

The Scorpion continues the high standard set by its predecessor, with Dian and Wesley's relationship continuing to progress-- as a vicious serial killer is on the loose, of course. The strong character work is again the highlight; this volume probably gives us more of Wesley's thoughts than the previous three combined, and it's fascinating: a quiet, shy man driven by forces he cannot comprehend to do what he does, who wants to do right by Dian, but held back by fear. If there's any downside to this installment, it's that the murderer is completely obvious. Also, every installment of this series features completely despicable people being murdered, so it's hard to be too engaged in the hunt for their killers. Some innocent victims would be nice. (That's not something you say a lot.) But on the whole, there's a lot to enjoy here; this is probably the most proactive the Sandman's been in an investigation, and it's also the start of a new, more pivotal role for Dr. Hubert Klein, the NYPD's medical examiner, the first character to actively assist the mysterious vigilante.

Sandman Mystery Theatre: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »

With this, its third volume, Sandman Mystery Theatre has jumped above the lackluster performance of The Face and The Brute and even exceeded its strong debut in The Tarantula. There are two important creator changes in this volume. The first is that Guy Davis, who illustrated The Tarantula, returns to the series, and it is all the better for it. The fellows who did The Face and The Brute just didn't have his skill; Davis draws some of the most real people in comics. I shudder to think how the cute Dian Belmot would look in the hands of your typical superhero artist. Perhaps more importantly, Steven T. Seagle joins Matt Wagner as co-writer.

I dunno if he's responsible for the subtle changes that made this story really work, but it really really does. One of the recurring themes of SMT has been prejudice, a natural enough topic for a story set in upper-crust 1930s New York City, but unfortunately it had a tendency to get a little bit obvious, with its protagonists (Wesley and Dian) being properly undiscriminating in a world where everyone else tosses off ethnic slurs against the Chinese. The Vamp handles this with a bit more nuance, such as scenes where Dian is repulsed by the idea of lesbianism, showing that she's not quite the hero we "enlightened" 21st-century readers might like her to be. And Lieutenant Burke, who in the first volume revealed that he considered his sister dead to him because she married a black man, is himself the target of racism, when he's stared at upon entering a social club. One of the members tells him they don't have any Italians, and Burke growls back, "I'm Sicilian." The club member simply replies, "Well, whatever you are, we don't have any of those either. At least I don't think we do." The take on 1930s racism feels much more complex as a result. Also, I laughed at that scene, and indeed, I found The Vamp much more prone to humor than its predecessors, though that never came at the cost of atmosphere-- all of the light moments were well-placed.

The characters are also on fine form here. Wesley and Dian's relationship continues to grow, and the theme of Dian "waking up" from her long sleep also continues, as she even does some amateur sleuthing of her own. Wesley and Dian's relationship is one of the better-portrayed relationships I've read in comics. The two characters love each other madly, but that doesn't make things magically easy for them, yet the conflict and misunderstandings in their relationship all come across completely naturally. Lieutenant Burke also gets fleshed out, going from yet another random cop to a competent detective who also happens to be a complete asshole. He's the sort of character you love to hate-- or in my case, you just love.

Story-wise, this is probably one of the better mysteries the series has given us. Though the perpetrator of the murders is pretty obvious to the reader from around the halfway point, the detection by the Sandman, Burke, and Dian all feels logical, and the end of the story works particularly well, with none of the leaps that made some of the previous stories unsatisfying. All told, The Vamp was a brilliant piece of work that left me immediately looking forward to the next installment of Sandman Mystery Theatre.

Sandman Mystery Theatre: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »

After the success of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, DC revisited the original Sandman with Sandman Mystery Theatre, a pulp-influenced reworking of Wesley Dodds. In these stories, Wesley is not a playboy, but a shy, retiring man plagued by terrible dreams to fill the gap in the cosmos caused by the capture of Dream. Instead of the array of shorts we got in the 1940s, Matt Wagner gives us a sprawling, complicated tale of the Sandman trying to track down a mysterious murderer known only as "the Tarantula." (There was a Tarantula in one of the original Golden Age Sandman stories, but he isn't related to this one as far as I can tell.)

Dodds, though, is largely an enigma in this story, driven by strange dreams and mostly seen from an outside perspective, even when a scene focuses on him. The viewpoint character of The Tarantula is very much Dian Belmont, no longer a safecracker, but still the daughter of the District Attorney. One of her friends is one of the victims of the Tarantula, and her efforts to assist in the case-- and her interactions with the mysterious Sandman, not to mention the charming Wesley Dodds-- begin to give some aim and purpose to her until-now aimless life.

The plot of The Tarantula is a labyrinthine mystery, mostly taking place at night in New York City. The mystery is well-done, cutting the difficult line between obvious and impossible just right. The primary things that makes this story work, though, is the atmosphere that it oozes-- these are the dark, decadent adventures the Sandman should have been having all along. The Sandman inhabits a world every bit as frightening as his visage, tormented by dreams that show him the worst things he can imagine.

I really like Guy Davis's art. It's a little cartoony, but it works. He has a nice command of human faces, especially, and his characters look like real people: you can see Wesley's slight slump, and Dian is attractive but not a supermodel, more cute (and plump) than a knockout. On the other hand, he handles the dark and the creepy just exactly right as well. Moody and mysterious, The Tarantula is everything the original Sandman should have been all along.

Sandman Mystery Theatre: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »

This volume provides more detail about what was going on in the agency while Liz was under the spell of the lotus, through the eyes of agents without super-powers.

Seulement trois petites histoires. Rigolo et gentillet, mais vite oublié...

Un sujet original, un traitement qui tient la route, drôle et sans concessions. Une bonne tranche de zombitude.

Punks are cool. Mysteries are cool. Sherlock Holmes is cool. These three things alone suggest that Honor Among Punks should be awesome, and as it turns out, it is.

Set in London sometime in the early 90's of a world that never experienced WWII, The Baker Street stories revolve around Sue, an American medical student, and her punk roommates. One of these roommates, Shanon, also happens to be a former police detective and one of the finest deductive minds in the Western world. Luckily, the punk scene of alternate London provides no shortage of crimes and cases to be cracked by this rag-tag team of amateur detectives.

This thick, heavy volume contains two long stories and a few brief vignettes that originally ran monthly around the turn of the 1990's by Caliber Comics. As behooves a good independent title, the writing is full and rich. Davis and Reed have a real understanding of character and conflict, with a dramatis personæ who learn and evolve even through the scant ten issues that were published. The cases Shanon and company undertake are layered and complex, existing in a fascinating sub-culture that may or may not have ever really existed, but which comes at us fully formed with cliques, politics, and territory the story only just penetrates. By the end, I was terribly frustrated that I was not going to learn anything more about this fascinating new world.

At first the black and white art may seem very... hmmmm perhaps 'independent' is the best word for it. The lines are rough, but give it a moment and one quickly sees that Guy Davis' art is full of detail and energy: we're dealing with real people here in a real world, even if they are only about two inches high and glossy. On a side note, it is also quite fun to see Davis' art change every so slightly through the course of the work as he learns more about his characters and refines their style. He is also sure to keep everything within the Neo-Victorian aesthetic of his alternate world, from clothes and architecture right down to the font of the sound effects, a touch that really brings it all together.

My only real complaint is that the book is put together a bit too cheaply. Sure, it's on glossy paper, but the layout is a bit off with some margins going off the page, and sub-standard printing means that occasionally, there simply isn't any ink where there should be. That, and the lettering is often a little too erratic to read easily, though I suppose that fits in with the punk setting.

Technical flaws notwithstanding, Honor Among Punks is a fantastic tribute to Doyle's Sherlock Holmes created by two men with a deep love of both the source material and the modern subculture in which they transplant it. It is a real shame that we may never see more work out of Baker Street from these artists, as there is a vast world there waiting to be revealed.

I really liked this graphic novel, it was not what I expected it to be. I like how Wesley Dodds is just a regular person, but at night he bocomes the Sandman, with only a gasmask and his special gas. I'm not sure if I like Matt Wagner's or Neil Gaiman's Sandman better, I guess you could say that they are completely different because Wesley Dodds isn't the Sandman in Gaiman's. The original Sandman is very good, though, and the first volume left me wanting to read more.½

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