Hey, remember that time all those SFPD cops robbed a bank at Market & Sansome while sleepwalking? Oh wait that didn't really happen, it's just one of the plot points of "Less Than Hero," a comic book by Jason McNamara and Tony Talbert, set right here in our own back yard and pointed out to us by the folks at Isotope Comics. Concerning itself primarily with a failed dot-com kid who tries to kill himself, an investment banker with the power to control peoples' sleep patterns, and a cult based in the Sunset, the biggest kick you might get out of the story is recognizing an intersection or local low-rent celebrity on its pages. If your favorite thing about SF is its grit and rough edges, this is a book for you -- the art reminds us of something we might see in vintage Mad Magazine, in that grotesque/realistic, Mary-Worth-gone-wrong sort of style, and the dialogue is unadorned. The lightning-fast pace of the books match the locale in which they're set, and even though that can cause some confusion, it's a confusion to which we, as SF residents, have grown accustomed.
Next up on our reading list: Creature Tech, by Doug TenNapel, the guy who created Earthworm Jim. His new book is about a scientist exiled to his hometown to study supernatural phenomena. But what's it REALLY about? Oddly enough, it's a propaganda piece for intelligent design. The hero marvels that people are "irreducibly complex," a term used by ID philosophers to mean that we're too well-put-together to have occurred naturally. Some very jarring scenes enact completely unnecessary arguments between science and faith. For no particular reason, an alien Christ makes an appearance. And specially thanked are Behe and Dembski, two self-declared scientists who've argued that "We'll Never Know" counts as valid scientific doctrine. All this subtext is a shame, because it distracts from what might otherwise have been a pleasant story -- giant space eels summoned to destroy the earth by an evil ghost with the power to turn cats into monsters. Fun! But unfortunately, it's made a bit dour by reverent reference to a philosophy that thinks that wisdom teeth and glaucoma were designed intelligently. We liked Doug's other recent book, Tommysaurus Rex a little better, but both that and this title suffer from The Creeping Schlock.
After the jump: crushing sadness, the USSR, and, as one person described it, "the Bollywood justice league."
Vimanarama, by the excellent Grant Morrison and Philip Bond, feels like a highlight reel of an epic hero's journey, coming in at 102 pages when it could easily have been twice that length. We barely have time to keep hold of the plot (an ancient Hindu-esque race of heros and supervillains are awakened beneath a British convenience store, and wrestle for control of the Earth, as seen through the eyes of a 20-something British couple of Indian descent) as it zips along almost too fast to follow. With each turn of the page, we kept thinking, "did we miss something?" ...because it feels like the characters are making decisions, but we never actually see them do it. When our hero, who until now had been refusing his call, announces, "I think I'm going to need some help to save the world," we thought, "finally! He's going to do something!" And we're pretty sure he DOES ... it's just that we don't really see what it is. But it's still a beautiful, scenic, lightening-fast adventure, highly worth of reading.
No mentally healthy person should enjoy "Skyscrapers of the Midwest," by Joshua W. Cotter, a series of books that lift you up only to throw you off a cliff. Fortunately, we don't know of any mentally healthy people, so this might be just the thing you're looking for. Each tale in "Skyscrapers" involves a glimmer of pure optimism or nobility, left alive just long enough to form an attachment...which is then crushed. The most painful story might be Going to Grandma's, in which PAGES are devoted to two kittens' evening with Grandma, carousing and feeling loved, until Grandma walks to the kitchen to get some pie and vanishes, the pies dashed on the ground and the door left ajar. "We should probably go," the older kitten says. "But I wanna wait here from gramma." "I don't think she's comin' back." "But what happened?" "I don't know." "What are we supposed to do now?" And then they get their coats on and sadly leave as our heart breaks. If you revel in the somber disappointment of trudging through a rainstorm without an umbrella, you'll probably feel a kinship with Joshua Cotter's books, which last year won an Isotope Award for Excellence in Minicomics. Just, please, don't read them while you're walking over a bridge or handling sleeping pills.
On a somewhat lighter note, there's "Wintermen," a thoughtful series about the political intrigue that followed the USSR's secret agents after the fall of Communism. Spy stuff, secret weapons, traitors, and lots of hard-boiled gruff dialogue keep the story at a brisk simmer. We love stories where you don't know who to trust and anyone can get gunned down at any moment (mostly because they remind us so much of our own lives) and "Wintermen" is keeping a good strong grip on us, which is just enough to tide us over until next week's comic book review. Until then, comrades.
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