I’m not sure how I did not know this was coming, but volume 1 of David Boswell’s Reid Fleming: The World’s Toughest Milk Man was released in an affordable and luxurious hardcover this week, and that’s just about the greatest late Xmas present I’ve ever received. If you’re a fan of W.C. Fields-type misanthropy, drinking on the job and violence, this is the book for you. Boswell’s work is a masterpiece of comedy and sequential art, and I can’t believe it’s 30 years old. I was such a young crank when I discovered this, and now I’m an old crank — and I also love rye whiskey, just like Reid. Bad influence? Mmmmayyybeeee. But I think I was genetically predisposed to fall in love with Reid. I read half of it as soon as I got home and had to force myself to put it down in order to read the single issues so I could pontificate on those for you in this very space. Now I just need to find my giant hat and we can get down to business.
Hey, guess who finally wised up? Realizing that their most popular character may be a little fella called Batman, DC decided to give him another monthly title. That gives him an even 16 monthlies; things are finally coming up Batsy! Batman: The Dark Knight by David Finch separates itself from all other Batbooks by telling a bleak crime story about a childhood friend of Bruce’s who’s gone missing (he’s always been fond of, and I’m not making this up, “Dawn Golden”), and now it’s up to Bats to find her even if it means fighting Killer Croc in an alley while KC is high on Venom, a potent street drug. OK, I’m kidding — this is just like every other Batbook on the racks. It’s so phenomenally boring and unoriginal that it shook me to my core: Am I wrong about Batman? I mean, I hate all these by-the-numbers stories he appears in, but DC keeps churning them out so they must be making money. This is what you all want? Or at least the vast majority of you want it? I don’t know what to believe in anymore.
Oh, wait. I can believe in The All New Batman the Brave and the Bold, issue 2. Sholly Fisch and Rick Burchett have once again crafted a dandy tale — Psycho-Pirate has driven everybody in Gotham to a rage right before Xmas — just as Billy Batson and Tawky Tawny (yes!) come to town to do some holiday shopping. Any comic that features a giant talking tiger in a suit is all right by me, especially since Batman and Shazam have a serious conversation about feelings and doing the right thing. Folks, this is marketed as a comic for kids, but it’s the best of the Batbooks — I may have to keep these for myself and give the nephews the trade when it comes out.
Much more adult in nature (there are swears and everything) is the final installment of The Bulletproof Coffin by David Hine and Shakey Kane. I know this is a favorite of Star Clipper’s Jon, so I don’t want to say too much about it in case he wants to write about it. I will say it ended very well, and that I love the name “Spandax Groyne.”
Another name I love is “Scott Hampton” — he’s one of the best horror artists working because he understands the power of understatement. So, having him illustrate Hellboy: The Sleeping and the Dead 1 from a Mike Mignola script is something to get excited about. Too many artists get a shot at Hellboy and try to do all the Mignola trademarks, particularly those magnificent solid black shadows. Hampton instead creates moody panels swathed in gradations of shadow for this tale of European vampires in England, and the effect is beautiful and chilling.
His panel of a lady vampire laying broken and batlike on the ground shows you everything you need to know about her alien nature, and those tiny, doll-sized coffins that show up later are absolutely terrifying. Mignola’s script is one of his strongest; it’s a very fine tale and worth the cover price.
What can I say about Tiny Titans at this point? Art Baltazar and Franco continue to provide genuinely funny stories that work on an adult level (there’s a protracted argument about the tropes of parallel universe stories, specifically how you can tell who’s evil by their costume’s color scheme) and on kid level (everyone gets pancakes at the end!), and they continue to surprise. Tiny Titans is not just a highlight of my comic buying, it’s a highlight of my life.
I am sorely tempted to proclaim Reid Fleming as the Best Thing I Read This Week, but I also read it back in ‘87 or ‘88 so that doesn’t seem quite right. OK, if you’ve never read Reid’s book, it’s going to be the best thing you read this week. If you have read it, Hellboy: The Sleeping and the Dead is gonna take that title. The fact that Mignola and Hampton are able to make a vampire story truly scary in a hyper-saturated market is worth pointing out — and nobody in this book sparkles.
-Paul
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One of my favorite bookstores in St. Louis. Star Clipper offers not only the best selection of comic books and graphic novels in the city, but also a cornucopia of art, design and pop-culture related books and magazines. 
Paul – What are your thoughts on the blank back cover of the final issue of “Bulletproof Coffin?” I thought it was appropriate for the story but it drove me crazy from a retail standpoint. I also thought it might have been a print error, which negates my first point. – Jon
Oh, I liked it. I liked it quite a bit. The back covers were used as supplemental story pages for the entire series, helping to create the illusion that this was happening in a seperate little universe that operated just like ours. I noticed it before I read the issue and thought it was blank as a “no spoilers” device, since the back cover always tied in to and buttressed the interior story. Instead it’s the comic book equivalent of fade to black; if the artist stops working, all you have is a blank page. So I thought it was a perfect final note.
What were your thoughts on Steve’s ever-changing last name? My initial feeling was that this was a sure sign that he was an unreliable narrator, since he couldn’t even keep his own name straight. Then I thought it was building to a huge reveal, that with each issue Steve would learn a little more of the truth and in the final installment he would learn his real name (fans of English literature will notice an echo of Mr. Ramsay’s personal intellectual quest from Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse”) and know everything. Now I suspect it’s a slow-burning joke on the Bruce Banner/Robert Banner order, poking a little fun at Stan Lee’s infrequent mental lapses regarding his own characters’ names, but I’m not completely sure.
I really like that a six issue standalone series can raise questions like this, by the way.