COMICS: Dave's Other Rant: Galaxion,Siren,Transmet,Q&W,Goat

[Dave Van Domelen]

Dave's Other Rant:

Galaxion Special #1 "Waaaay Up The Academy"
Siren #1 (of 3?) "Ahead Of Their Time"
Transmetropolitan #11 "Dear John"
Quantum & Woody #16 "Coming Down From The Mountain"
The Goat Inaction Figure "Baaa"

Spoilers....

Galaxion Special "Spring Break": A tale of when Fusella and Darvin were
dating at the Academy, and Zandarin was shooting for a scholarship to be able
to attend that selfsame institution, up on the Moon. It's 13 pages of story
and 3 pages summarizing the regular series, for 99 cents.
The story involves Zandarin trying to get the others to help him hack
into the grad student observatory in order to get some data to confirm the
thesis he's writing for the scholarship contest. Of course, they do get
caught...but not until six months later. By which time the head of the
Academy has decided to let Zandarin in and not send them all to jail. The
implication is that their college days were much like this for their entire
stays. }->
All three of the characters are believable as younger versions of the
ones we know from the regular series. A little more naive, or less cynical
(and no, I don't think I'm being redundant here, I spent much of high school
being naive *and* cynical, just about different subjects), definitely more
juvenile. But the traits we see in the adults are definitely present in the
kids, while not being fully developed (a common mistake for these stories is
to have the young'uns behave exactly like the adults, but silly or naive).
A good story, good art, and you can't hardly beat the price these days.
Buy it already.

Siren "Shapes Part 1: The Prodigal Son": Apparently this is going to be
a 3-issue limited series, if I read the indicia rightly. Here's a copy of
the review I did on the photocopied preview, with any changes noted in square
brackets.
---
Dave's Rant Special:

Siren #1 Ashcan Edition "Number One With A Bullit"

Siren #1 is solicited in the current issue of Previews for a May
release, in the Image section. It's by J. Torres and Tim Levins of The
Copybook Tales, but it's rather different from that work (in other words, if
you like one, you're not guaranteed to like the other).
To see some of the artwork (albeit rather grainy...the scanning was done
at too low a resolution to read the text) you can check out the book's
webpage at http://members.tripod.com/~sirenscall/. Warning, it's got one of
those pop-up ad windows.

[Spoiler space deleted]

Torres and Levins have described this book as "Astro City meets
X-Files," but at the risk of having less people understand me, I'd say it's a
LOT closer to Bill Willingham's Coventry series. Female private investigator
in a town where the weird is normal, with an assistant who looks like the
artist (well, like Thatch over in Copybook Tales, who I presume looks at
least a bit like Levins). Focus bounces around to introduce multiple
characters as well as the city's feel, although most bits are tied together
at least loosely by the main character's movements in solving a mystery.
[Plus, it's only gonna have three issues, although Willingham didn't exactly
plan that for Coventry.]
This is not to say it's a carbon copy. For one thing, the main
character is a lot more human, less experienced, than Conventry's lead. And
while Coventry's feel is more mystical-heroic, Siren's very much a pulp feel,
at least at the moment. There's four-color superheroes in the city, but we
only see them in silhouette, flying by overhead...the ones we actually see
[up close] are the vigilantes, normals with guns, supernatural creatures and
other "street level" stuff.
I'd like to give more of an impression on the overall feel of the book,
but it's doing so many things right away that, at least on first read-
through, there isn't a unifying theme I could pick up. It's VERY plot-dense,
as I realized when I tried to explain the possibilities behind the last page
of the issue to a friend, and had to take a breath in the middle of my string
of adjectives and relationships.
The following quote from the first few pages does a good job of setting
up the two main characters: "Since taking over my father's agency, I've dealt
with banshees, witches, aliens from outer space...not to mention vampires.
And those are just the women my assistant has dated." }->

Anyway, the main plot (and there's about a half dozen subplots on top of
it) involves trying to find a runaway teenager. Would be simple, but the
kid's a shapeshifter (and has learned how to look like Jamie Cruz), making it
a little harder to track him. Especially since there's apparently enough
shapeshifters in town to support a bar open only to them and their guests
(mind you, all the vampires count as shapeshifters for purposes of getting
in). One telling clue about the level of scrutiny Torres is giving the world
is that all these shapeshifters aren't heavily registered and controlled...
he's not looking for totally realistic views of his superhero world, just
real enough to be a backdrop.
As for the subplots, I'm not even gonna try to go over them here.
There's practically a new one popping up every other page. I just counted 12
things which might be considered subplots, and the book is 28 pages. Like I
said, very plot-dense. But since the vast majority of these subplots are
merely introduced, there's not a sense of "too much plot getting in the way
of the story," since Torres doesn't try to resolve any of the plots right
away.

A couple of criticisms before I go, although some of them are more
matters of taste. The art is pretty much the same as in Copybook Tales,
which is to say it's on the slightly goofy side of iconic. While this works
in the light comedic scenes, it's a little out of place when a sense of
menace is called for. There's a few other goofy touches which seem to push
the boundaries a bit, such as Sgt. Kerry Derryberry's name. Shudder.
Finally, there is a LOT of black. Except for a flashback scene, all the
gutters and borders are solid black. While this is used to good effect in
some places, it does place a burden on the printing house used...this much
black just begs to smudge all over the place in a reader's hands if done less
expensively.
[It's not smudgy, but I wouldn't read the final copy with sweaty hands
either, if I were you.]

Overall, I'd say this book's a gamble. If it folds in less than a dozen
issues, there's bound to still be serious danglers from #1. But if it *does*
last, it'll be well worth it in terms of story richness and depth. And
everything's at least a little bit connected right from the start, if only
because character X walks past character Y in a segue. This lessens the
frustration one can feel with totally unrelated plots that take a half dozen
issues to dovetail. Personally, I'll take the chance.
[Given that it's now a three-issue LS, I'd say the gamble is on whether
there's any followup LS's.]

Dave Van Domelen, "Ex-girlfriend. I'm glad you didn't piss her off or
anything. You wouldn't like her when she's angry." "I don't like her,
period. I don't care if she turns into the Hulk, next time I'm taking out a
can of whoop-ass." - Evan (assistant) and Zara (detective)
---

The back cover picture of next issue's cover introduces the Doormen, a
mystical trio of, well, doormen that apparently pick up Zara at...dare I say
it...death's door.
The lettercol is done like a newspaper, dated May 20, 1998. Guess they
managed to ship a week early, imagine that!

Transmetropolitan "Freeze Me With Your Kiss Part 2 of 3": As Spider
seeks a place to hole up, he flashes back to his previous stint as a
reporter, stuck in Paris after the French had just lost the War of the Words
over being able to keep using their own language. Sounds like Canadian
Content taken to its illogical extreme. }->
Meanwhile, Stomponato is on the case, and refuses to give it up, even
though A) the mere mention of Spider sends him into convulsions and B) he's
been recalled, since the insurance matter is being cleared up. After taking
a dump on Spider's Maker, he heads off to do more damage.
Back on the street, Spider's found refuge in a portapottie, which is
oddly suitable. He's growing more disenchanted with the City every passing
moment, as demonstrated by the use of infopollen (which he made a big deal
over being banned two issues ago, and now points out is only sometimes
banned, thanks to odd time-dependent loopholes in the law).
Over at the City Desk, things just keep getting worse for Royce. Not
only is Spider's headless kid really creepy in a cute sort of way (well, as
cute as a headless kid can be, I guess), but the whole Spider Situation is
rapidly turning into a colossal headache. Oddly, when Spider finally manages
to connect with him from the toilet, it makes the headaches go away for
once. The person behind Spider's woes overplayed her hand, giving Royce a
glaring clue to her identity...his assistant. The precise nature of her
grudge against Spider will be revealed next issue. Meanwhile, men in hazmat
suits with large weapons are about to inform Spider that it's time for him to
flush and move on...to the next life.
In the lettercol, after my pal Pete's letter is run, Warren asks what
the connection is between Hunter S Thompson's latest book and Monica
Lewinsky. Can't say, but I'm sure a bazillion readers will suggest a certain
sort of connection between HST himself and Monica. Hey, I read HST's piece
in Time a few months back, he's not too old for that sort of thing. He'll
probably be five years dead before he's too old for that sort of thing, in
fact. }->

Quantum & Woody "Magnum Force Round 3: Fear": This begins much the same
way last issue did, with Our Heroes trapped by War Locke after losing again.
Except that War Locke's a bit...damaged...by the explosion last issue, and
the control bands have shorted out. Death seems imminent, as a container
with the guys in it is lowered slowly into a chemical mess left by the
explosion, and WL listens to a damaged recording from Magnus which seems to
imply that he wants them dead now (the "do not" part is damaged, leaving the
"kill them" bit). Things look REALLY bad. Eric's praying. Woody's
panicking. Then Woody gets lucky. Sort of.
Y'see, corrosive vapors and open flame RARELY coexist peacefully. And
since the canister the guys are in has no bottom anymore thanks to said
corrosive vapors, you get the old "cherry bomb under the garbage can" trick
when Woody gets his Zippo lit. BOOM. Wayyyy up into the air and dropped at
the edge of a cliff.
During this cliffhanger, Eric flashes back to a childhood incident where
Woody pushed him off the diving board. Bet Eric's more than a little tempted
to let Woody drop off the cliff, but he's just barely mature enough not to do
that. After way too little rest time, the find they're being chased by War
Locke and a large number of not-dead-yet forces of Magnum's. And,
apparently, they're in an entirely different part of the world, since it was
desert in #15 and this is mountains and alpine stuff. Must have been moved
between #15 and #16.
After evading these guys, Q&W meet back up and each accuses the other of
bailing on him. A lot of bitterness boils up again, the two take off the
control bands and head off on separate paths. Minor art quibble...if the
bands bond to skin when active, how could Eric get a sleeve under his?

Goat: Frankly, I'm a little disappointed. Sure, it was advertised as
inarticulated, but I kinda hoped for A) a little more detail, like Vincent's
harness and not just a cape, and B) more colors. He's grey with blue mask
and eyes. Period. No other shading. How much more would it have cost to
hav white eyes, black pupils and some bits of brown for the horns and hooves?
It's almost like they took an existing mold and added a quick paint job, but
having looked all over to goat toys (as part of the kitbashing effort which
resulted in http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~dvandom/kidkid.GIF) I'm pretty
confident that it was a new mold.
The card art uses the painted cover for Q&W #1 (IMO, #3 would have been
far more appropriate), and there's a three-panel strip by Priest and Bright
on the back, showing the results of letting Vincent anywhere near a comic
shop. The card is 7" by 5.25" (18cm by 13cm), and Vincent himself is 3" tall
and nearly 4" long (7.5cm by 10cm). The cape is cloth with a bit of elastic
to hold it around the neck, and the fold map is a small square of heavy stock
paper with watermark-like lines on it which may be intended as text. I
thought they might be glow in the dark, but tests showed this not to be the
case.
I suppose it's up to me to bring Vincent to proper life with the aid of
paint, glue and modeling compound. I'll let you guys know when I'm done.
Maybe I'll even build him a battle rig with some leftover Panzer Blade bits I
have. }->

Dave Van Domelen, "Up until last week, he thought the Magna Carta was a
book written by Isaac Newton on his theories of the magnetic force.
Something had to be done." - Darvin Deloren on Zandarin Wilder's narrow
educational focus