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Review: Negative Burn #1
Negative Burn #1
Featuring Brian Bolland, Phil Hester, Patton Oswalt, James A. Owen, Eric Powell, Greg Ruth and others
Published by Desperado Publishing/Image Comics. $5.99
I have no real nostalgia for the original Negative Burn. I knew it was around in the '80s but I never read it. I think that, like another anthology of that time, A1, whenever I picked up an issue, it was well into some multipart story by Alan Moore or someone else I knew, so I just never bought an issue. I've read the specials publisher Joe Pruett has put out in the past year, though, so I had a pretty good idea of what to expect here in this more-regular series (I can't imagine it will be monthly at $6 an issue, right??)
Between a dramatic cover by Jordan Raskin are nine pieces--6 short stories, 2 one-pagers from Bolland and Powell, respectively (nothing to write home about, either of them) and a gorgeous Greg Ruth "sketchbook" that really just appears to be spot illustrations from an upcoming young adult paperback series he's doing for Scholastic. They're not sketches.
I'm a big Oswalt fan (his comedy), and I didn't mind, "How Do You Read a Book That Big?", illustrated by Jonathan Luna in a very Steve Dillon style, but it's more like an unformed bit for his standup act. Matthew Smith's "Auld Lang Syne" is the second actual story, and highlights one of the annoying parts of the new Negative Burn--some of the work is just there as a tease to upcoming stuff to buy elsewhere. Apparently Smith has come up with his own occult investigator character, Evan Fade, because I guess he wasn't already enough in debt to Mike Mignola. His style has evolved since I saw it in Astronauts in Trouble and that terrible Jim Krueger thing about clockmakers, yes, but it's still so Mignolaesque we need a stronger modifier than "esque." He even steals the Mignola bit of showing a statue's silent face and then going closer on it in the next panel to heighten the spooky, Gothic mood. This story doesn't have any one-liners or action like Hellboy, though--Fade, a regular guy who just has the gift of being able to communicate with the dead--talks with a pretty female ghost from the '40s and dances with her a bit before she makes her way to the next stage or whatever. Not badly written at all, but the artistic similarities to Mignola, especially after so many years as a professional, bother me a little.
Hester's "The Skin of the Stone" isn't developed enough, but not bad for anthology material. Will Volley's "The Gull" is a preposterous horror tale of a giant seagull menacing a city. As it follows the Ruth sketchbook and doesn't give Volley's credit, and is in Ruth's style, I thought it was his and immediately wished he would just illustrate other people's work, so now I guess I must transfer that wish to Volley, who is at least a good artist. It's the longest story here, and not at all the best.
That distinction might go to "Moebius: A Sketch," a biographical anecdote written by Mark Askwith and illustrated by R. G. Taylor about Askwith hitting it off with the famous creator of Arzach, then inviting him to do a signing at a comics store he managed in the mid-'80s, the Silver Snail. We meet a Moebius fan who isn't satisfied with just a signature and small in-book sketch (a European tradition), he wants a full sketch on paper, and he dictates what he wants the sketch to be. Moebius accomodates, despite Askwith's protests. This is still not enough for the young man, and the story is ultimately about the strange way many people relate to celebrities, how they feel that their admiration for their work or appreciation of their beauty entitles them to a repayment on their own terms. It reminds me of a song from the last White Stripes cd called "Take, Take, Take," which is about a young man meeting Rita Hayworth and not being happy with an autograph, photo and kiss and getting upset when she wants to leave and go get some sleep. The final story is actually part three (maybe the first two appeared in previous NB specials?) of what may be a graphic novel eventually by James A. (Starchild) Owen. It's a prose/sequential art hybrid, the art in a fussy, overly rendered style I associate with Marshall Rogers, but I think Rogers can drawn better. I found the script equally fussy and overwritten.
Still, though I think the price is a bit steep for the quality of the material (I only really liked one story!), I'm glad there's an anthology series again with more genre-based, less experimental leanings, just for variety's sake.
Featuring Brian Bolland, Phil Hester, Patton Oswalt, James A. Owen, Eric Powell, Greg Ruth and others
Published by Desperado Publishing/Image Comics. $5.99
I have no real nostalgia for the original Negative Burn. I knew it was around in the '80s but I never read it. I think that, like another anthology of that time, A1, whenever I picked up an issue, it was well into some multipart story by Alan Moore or someone else I knew, so I just never bought an issue. I've read the specials publisher Joe Pruett has put out in the past year, though, so I had a pretty good idea of what to expect here in this more-regular series (I can't imagine it will be monthly at $6 an issue, right??)
Between a dramatic cover by Jordan Raskin are nine pieces--6 short stories, 2 one-pagers from Bolland and Powell, respectively (nothing to write home about, either of them) and a gorgeous Greg Ruth "sketchbook" that really just appears to be spot illustrations from an upcoming young adult paperback series he's doing for Scholastic. They're not sketches.
I'm a big Oswalt fan (his comedy), and I didn't mind, "How Do You Read a Book That Big?", illustrated by Jonathan Luna in a very Steve Dillon style, but it's more like an unformed bit for his standup act. Matthew Smith's "Auld Lang Syne" is the second actual story, and highlights one of the annoying parts of the new Negative Burn--some of the work is just there as a tease to upcoming stuff to buy elsewhere. Apparently Smith has come up with his own occult investigator character, Evan Fade, because I guess he wasn't already enough in debt to Mike Mignola. His style has evolved since I saw it in Astronauts in Trouble and that terrible Jim Krueger thing about clockmakers, yes, but it's still so Mignolaesque we need a stronger modifier than "esque." He even steals the Mignola bit of showing a statue's silent face and then going closer on it in the next panel to heighten the spooky, Gothic mood. This story doesn't have any one-liners or action like Hellboy, though--Fade, a regular guy who just has the gift of being able to communicate with the dead--talks with a pretty female ghost from the '40s and dances with her a bit before she makes her way to the next stage or whatever. Not badly written at all, but the artistic similarities to Mignola, especially after so many years as a professional, bother me a little.
Hester's "The Skin of the Stone" isn't developed enough, but not bad for anthology material. Will Volley's "The Gull" is a preposterous horror tale of a giant seagull menacing a city. As it follows the Ruth sketchbook and doesn't give Volley's credit, and is in Ruth's style, I thought it was his and immediately wished he would just illustrate other people's work, so now I guess I must transfer that wish to Volley, who is at least a good artist. It's the longest story here, and not at all the best.
That distinction might go to "Moebius: A Sketch," a biographical anecdote written by Mark Askwith and illustrated by R. G. Taylor about Askwith hitting it off with the famous creator of Arzach, then inviting him to do a signing at a comics store he managed in the mid-'80s, the Silver Snail. We meet a Moebius fan who isn't satisfied with just a signature and small in-book sketch (a European tradition), he wants a full sketch on paper, and he dictates what he wants the sketch to be. Moebius accomodates, despite Askwith's protests. This is still not enough for the young man, and the story is ultimately about the strange way many people relate to celebrities, how they feel that their admiration for their work or appreciation of their beauty entitles them to a repayment on their own terms. It reminds me of a song from the last White Stripes cd called "Take, Take, Take," which is about a young man meeting Rita Hayworth and not being happy with an autograph, photo and kiss and getting upset when she wants to leave and go get some sleep. The final story is actually part three (maybe the first two appeared in previous NB specials?) of what may be a graphic novel eventually by James A. (Starchild) Owen. It's a prose/sequential art hybrid, the art in a fussy, overly rendered style I associate with Marshall Rogers, but I think Rogers can drawn better. I found the script equally fussy and overwritten.
Still, though I think the price is a bit steep for the quality of the material (I only really liked one story!), I'm glad there's an anthology series again with more genre-based, less experimental leanings, just for variety's sake.
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