Best Comics of 2013, No. 13: The Black Beetle!

A couple days behind on these, due to illness. I will catch up today and tomorrow.
Some things I keep returning to, and have all my life: superheroes, film noir, 1940s motifs. I'm especially keen on the non-powered vigilante superhero. I've made no secret of my admiration for Doc Savage, the Shadow and the Rocketeer (my constantly back-burner superheroine The Kiss is in large part a response to the sexism in stories from those eras and genres).
I was tickled by Francesco Francavilla's The Black Beetle, from Dark Horse.

Tight, moody writing. Art that is both innovative and in service to the story, with layout elements at times echoing period pieces. An urgent yet detached hero with a backstory that's integral to the plot. Way cool weapons. And so much more!
While I wasn't paying a lot of attention, I've been admiring Francavilla's art for years, first in the neglected revolutionary war superhero/spy story The Black Coat, then on Matt Wagner's Zorro and a fill-in issue of Jason Asala's Scalped. His work has a confidence and an urgency that serve it well, and he seems most at home working on period material.
I'm pleasantly surprised that he writes as well as he draws. Though there are a reasonable number who do both well, it's still less common than excelling in one or the other.
Based on a napkin sketch from some years earlier, The Black Beetle was begun as a blog project in 2006, and picked up by Dark Horse for publication in Dark Horse Presents in 2009, followed by a 2013 minieseries. A handsome hardcover collected edition appeared in October 2013. With a new miniseries scheduled for early this year, we can eagerly anticipate yet another hardcover edition, and - dare we hope?- a beautiful Omnibus edition down the road!
This is the stuff of pulps, cliffhanger dramas full of lush color and over-the-top action, coupled with the story of a hunt for a great Maguffin, a scarab, and a delightful if underused villain, Labyrntino (great name!), the story engages on every level.
I mentioned the coloring. Francavilla does his own coloring, and he's every bit as subtle as the best. He controls his color schemes tightly, usually working in a very subdued range that makes the warm tones really pop, much as the Pander Brothers did on their early Grendel run.
I read this through our friends at the Public Library, as I did with many books this year. But I will be adding it to my personal library as soon as I'm able. Ideally that Ominbus edition will be out by then!

Cover for first issue of next series!

Next: Best of 2013, No. 12 returns from the distance...

Best comics of 2011 no. 8: Scalped, book 8

Today's entry in the countdown reminds me of John Wayne, but not in the way you might think.
Wayne had made iconic Westerns for decades, but his health was failing. In half-hearted recognition of his body of work, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded him an Oscar for his role in the original True Grit- a serviceable performance, but hardly on a par with his contributions to The Searchers, Red River or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
So it is with today's entry. This year's collection of Scalped, You Gotta Sin to Get Saved, is not the best of the series to date. That would be 2009's The Gravel in Your Guts.
But since I just discovered this series in 2011, and this is the volume that came out this year, and since the series is winding down, so be it. The series deserves recognition, and now's the time.

 

This is contemporary Western noir. The complex, gritty story revolves around an FBI double agent, Dashiell Red Horse, assigned to  break the corrupt tribal chief Red Crow, as the chief tries to open and run a casino, going perpetually deeper into a moral morass in the process. The series delves into family histories of the characters and plays fast and loose with real history, with Leonard Peltier and the Wounded Knee battle as recurring characters and back-story events.

I find the violence and language revolting, but at the same time compelling in this context. The possibility of redemption looms larger when the soul falls farther, as the title implies.

The definition of noir is complex, but I see it as having parallels with Agnes Nixon's classic definition of a soap opera: characters doing all the wrong things for what they see as all the right reasons.
The motivations here are complex, with plot turns worthy of Cornell Woolrich in places.
The story is tempered with every character's fervent attempt to comprehend the motivations and morality (or lack thereof) of their actions, often committed without much forethought.
And the problematic issue of Native spirituality is handled rather deftly.
It needs to be said that opinion is highly divided on Scalped, as indicated in this thoughtful but impassioned exchange with writer Jason Aaron.
I've not paid much attention to Aaron's other work, Punisher Max, The Incredible Hulk and Wolverine and the X-Men, but I'll give them a chance based on this work, though they're not my usual cuppa.
Like 100 Bullets before it, this is noir with a challenging twist, and noir that does not use that twist as a crutch to hold up the story, but as a supplement to help move the story forward.
Next: No. 7: something not so elementary.