New comic book Wednesday has come and gone. The dust at your local comic shop has settled. An eerie silence descends as you finish reading your last superhero book of the week. Now it's time for something a little more sinister. Welcome to Bagged and Boarded: comic reviews of the sick, spooky, twisted and terrifying!
Breath of Bones: A Tale of the Golem No. 1
Horror comic mainstay Steve Niles (30 Days of Night) brings a new skew to the horrors of the Holocaust. Breath of Bones takes place in a small European village right before the Allied Forces storm Europe. A young boy, living with his grandparents, befriends a fallen pilot as his grandfather gives him a very important artifact: a tiny clay golem. This is the classic Jewish folk tale of the Golem made of clay that comes to life.
Bag it or board it up? We don't see any real action this issue, but this comic is beautifully illustrated in black and white and the characters jump off the page. Everything looks so well balanced between stylization and realism. Plus, the cover gives away a bit of the plot... a giant clay golem smashes Nazis at some point. And that's just perfect.
The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys No. 1
This new comic from My Chemical Romance lead singer Gerard Way follows a young girl who was once a member of the superhero team The Killjoys. Now, as the sole survivor and biggest fan of their group, the mysterious girl has to face their biggest foe: a megacorporation that's sucking the life out of Bat City.
Bag it or board it up? I don't care how you feel about My Chemical Romance, Gerard Way is a fantastic comic book writer (see also: Umbrella Academy). This issue crackles with new ideas and ingenuity. And the colors! I've never seen a post-apocalyptic world look so bright! I'm really digging this and will definitely follow the series further.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9 No. 22
In this continuation of the cult vampire series, Buffy and friends are trying to get to the center of the earth... totally normal, right? Buffy's teaming up with Willow (recently returned from a magical wonderland after all the magic in the world was drained) and they're trying to make their case to the mystical council.
Bag it or board it up? There is nothing that displeases me about what I just wrote above; mystical council? Love it. Journey to the center of the earth? Sure thing, I’ll tag along. Willow? Yeah she's my favorite. And when they team up against hordes of magical beings? Everything just seems right. The artwork by Georges Jeanty is beautiful. All the comics this week are so luxuriously illustrated. It's a real treat for the eyes!
Doomsday.1 No. 2
This second issue takes place sixty days after the first issue. In issue one, a group of astronauts on a space station watched as a solar flare decimated the Earth. Now, traveling on the scarred surface of the planet, the group runs into a friendly seeming police officer who offers them safe haven in a prison run by the convicts.
Bag it or board it up? I know the "prison run by convicts" schtick has been done before... but damn, John Byrne (of Next Men fame) can really tell a story. This issue is sad, exciting, gory, and it plays with time. We keep cutting in between action with little boxes that read "Moments Ago..." It's an awesome way to show the frenetic nature of the comic and the world in chaos. I'm such a big fan of this series already, and it keeps getting better.