To Hell You Ride

"To Hell You Ride" is two different stories crammed together into one unsatisfying package.

In the first story, a Native American man often derisively called "Two-Dogs" lives a life of alcoholic emptiness. Seven George (his birth name) was crushed by the weight of European civilization and what it did to his father, grandfather and other ancestors before he was even born. We flash back to those earlier days, and that seems at first to be the crux of the story. We see how his grandfather, Five George, was betrayed by a corrupt sheriff and hanged for a murder he did not commit. We see how his father (yes, Six George) was destroyed by the Vietnam War. We see a portrait of multigenerational death, and that alone could have been an interesting story.

But then actor Lance Henriksen and his co-writer Joseph Maddrey get to the second story: the cartoonishly corpulent and evil mayor of the remote Colorado town where "To Hell" takes place tries to drum up the local skiing and tourism business by -- get this -- seeding clouds with yellowcake uranium. It's a plot straight out of paranoid conspiracy websites like Worldnet Daily and Infowars, and yup, it goes bad. Many of the people exposed to this snow explode into a molten mess of gore. Then the U.S. military hires international mercenaries to come in and kill everyone and clean up the mess. This second story -- both pro-militia and anti-government -- becomes the main plot of the graphic novel. It takes over, leaving the first story in the dust. Although this plot does lead to Seven George's personal and supernatural transformation, the story just feels more ridiculous with each page.

As for the art, Tom Mandrake's work here is amazing, with intricate linework that flows and feels alive. The digital reading experience doesn't always do the art justice, though. Mandrake uses complex page layouts and reading this in the "panel zoom" format doesn't always work. Most of the pages were designed to be read as entire pages, not as single panels, so some of the impact is lost in the digital format on small screens. Try to read this in full-page format if you can.

All-told, this is an interesting failure, a graphic novel with great art and one great character that is hobbled by a plot that makes little to no sense and a paranoid worldview.

Two out of five stars.

Available digitally from Dark Horse Comics.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

How bad is Campfire's adaptation of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? Let me count the ways.

1. Most of the characters, the submarine the Nautilus, and the backgrounds are all copied almost exactly from Disney's 1954 movie, with extremely minor variations. Can you say "copyright violation" -- or just "lazy"?

2. Despite the fact that this volume was produced in India and drawn by an Indian artist (Bhupendra Ahluwalia), the villainous Captain Nemo is drawn as a white man, when Verne made clear in the Leagues sequel The Mysterious Island that Nemo was a Hindu prince.

3. The adaptation (scripted by Dan Ritter) is oddly paced, throwing in full- or half-page splashes when they do not serve the story and many pages with the action crammed into five, six or even seven panels. The wrong notes get the most emphasis throughout the book, leaving us with a book devoid of drama.

4. Even though this is a condensed version of Verne's novel, new bits (like Professor Aronnax's monstrous dream in the first few pages) are added to no effect, major plot elements appear nowhere, and minor scenes like the eating of an electric ray remain.

5. The lettering is awful. Thought balloons look like jellyfish rather than anything like has been drawn in comics for the last 80 years.

6. A three-page action sequence features a shark that appears to switch species every other panel.

7. The final, dreadful confrontation with the giant squid-slash-Kraken starts off with no drama, no emotion, no feeling of danger. It's as if every emotion has been drained out of the story. This is typical of the entire book.

8. Although the coloring occasionally stands out, most of it is muddy, basic computer coloring that makes the whole product look cheap.

9. Most of the sea creatures listed in the book's educational back matter appear nowhere in the graphic novel, divorcing the learning opportunity from the book students may have just slogged through.

I could go on, but you don't need 20,000 reasons not to buy this graphic novel. Only one will do: it's awful.

Of course, if you don't believe this review, you can always buy the digital graphic novel from Amazon.

Magic Pickle

Okay, so there’s this pickle, see? And 50 years ago, it benefited from good old-fashioned American military know-how, becoming Weapon Kosher,  a weapon for justice -- *dill* justice. And after doing its job for a time, it cryogenically slept for many long decades -- in a pickle jar, of course -- until it was needed once again.

In modern times, Weapon Kosher is reawakened from his long slumber. He learns that after many decades underground, his oldest and greatest foes have returned. The Phantom Carrot and Chili Chili Bang Bang have robbed a museum and sold the goods on an Internet auction site. What could they be up to?

Weapon Kosher bursts from his secret lab, only to find that it now exists below the bedroom of a little girl named Jo Jo. She dubs him “Magic Pickle,” and together, after a few mis-adventures, they go off to fight the Brotherhood of Evil Produce.

It gets weirder from there. And a lot more fun.

Writer and cartoonish Scott Morse continues to prove himself one of the most versatile creators in comics with this book, a collection of a four-issue series which was published last year. His previous books like “Soulwind” and “Volcanic Revolver” are dramas that touch upon very adult concepts, often using the world-view of child protagonists to bring his story to light. Here, he again uses a child narrator, but in doing so produces a whimsical, pun-filled tale that’s funny, exciting, resonant, and appropriate for all ages.

“Magic Pickle” might be the name of the book, but the real star is Jo Jo, a smart young girl with a lot of confidence, but not enough to avoid being put upon by another girl in her class, the tall, pretty, rich and annoying Lu Lu. Jo Jo’s experience with the Magic Pickle and the Brotherhood of Evil Produce serve as the catalyst for her overcoming that challenge and her growing up just a little bit.

What’s great here is that Jo Jo gets to grow up while still remaining a child. She never has to enter the adult world or take on adult roles to accomplish anything in this book. It’s a wonderful affirmation of the power of youth.

Of course, Weapon Kosher himself is an entertaining creation. He’s a devoted soldier, devoted to his cause and deadly serious, but he spouts lines like “Time to bust out the croutons” in the middle of a fight. And of course, he’s a pickle.

Morse’s artwork here is fluid and exciting, like the best of Tex Avery cartoons, only with a thicker, more stylish brush stroke. Previous Morse books were laid out like movies, with every page a series of thin, rectangular panels that were all exactly the same size. Here, he abandons that method, and lets the story flow from one odd-shaped panel to the next. It frees him and gives the tale and his artwork an extra dash of energy.

All told, dill-lightful. Three stars.

Available digitally from Comixology

(Review originally published in 2002.)

A Treasury of Victorian Murder: The Beast of Chicago

Not even the list of crimes linked to the recently charged Green River Killer compares to those of America's first (known) serial killer, H.H. Holmes, who, it is said, killed as many as 200 people in Chicago in the late 19th Century.

Holmes was a con man, a charismatic charmer whose most heinous crimes are mostly captured in speculation. There is little evidence of who he killed -- it was much easier to "disappear" in the 19th Century than it is today -- but little doubt of how he killed them.

While less well-known than his more contemporary counterparts, a number of writers have attempted to chronicle the few concrete facts about Holmes. Now Geary joins their ranks in this, the sixth graphic novel in his "Treasury of Victorian Murder" series.

Most who were acquainted with Holmes in Chicago at the time of the 1893 World's Fair knew of him as a respectable man, with a string of businesses, a beautiful if rarely seen wife, and the huge home / storefront / hotel known as "The Castle" which he built on 63rd Street.

But the real Holmes was much different from his public face. He and his string of failed businesses ran up huge debts which were never paid off. He was a liar and a cheat. His marriage was a sham. And the Castle... the Castle was Holmes' one true source of income. Of course, that income came from the possessions he stole from his murdered guests and the body parts he routinely sold to medical institutions.

Built to his specifications by a series of builders who never saw the plans for the whole building (or likely even got paid for their work), the Castle, it was later discovered, was built for killing. Guest room contained gas jets which Holmes could turn into remote-control flame-throwers from secret locations. A huge vault was found to contain human claw marks on the inside. A furnace big enough to burn bodies, and a blood-stained dissecting table, were found in the basement, along with a collection of human bones.

It's a macabre story, and Geary lets it unfold in a manner that is shocking but not exploitive. He takes his time, hints at horrors to come, but writes with an almost journalistic emotional distance from the facts. His writing style apes the flowery, formal text of the Victorian era, and his detailed drawings hearken back to an earlier time. Every detail of the day is meticulously researched, from the architecture to the clothing, and every stroke of his pen builds a tone that captures the seriousness of the day.

Reading about Holmes is a bit frustrating, because so little is actually known about him. He covered his tracks well, and much of what we know has been pieced together from what little remained. The Castle burned down in 1895. Holmes himself, when captured, alternately professed his innocence and admitted guilt while adding lie upon lie to the lies that had already made up his life.

Why did Holmes kill? How many did he really kill? How did he do it and get away with it for so long? There are no answers, and Geary, to his credit, does not pretend to try to know them. He just lays out the known facts -- and the known lies -- for the reader, and lets us know that sometimes, true evil really does exist.

Three stars.

Available digitally from Comixology.

(Review originally published in 2003.)