Best Comics of 2012 No. 2: Doug Wildey's RIO

Again, back to a book of reprints.
But there's so much new work here, and the old work is reprinted with such skill, it all feels new.

 

A bit of background:

Doug Wildey was a real life cowboy and adventurer who just just happened to be one of the best damn comic artists to come down the pike. While he's drawn and written war comics, The Saint comic strip, Tarzan, Archie, romance, mystery and horror, he's best known for two things: creating Jonny Quest and doing spectacular Westerns.
Oh, he was also the inspiration for the character of Peavey in The Rocketeer. Creator Dave Stevens was a friend and a huge fan.
Some of his work, like his characters for the short-lived Atlas/Seaboard line in the early 1970s, Kid Cody and the Comanche Kid, had short runs with sad distribution- odd in this particular case, when you consider that the Atlas company was started and run by Stan Lee's brother Larry Leiber.
After Wildey's strip Ambler folded in 1974, he returned to work on his Western magnum opus, Rio.
The first of three published graphic novels (at the time called "continuing stories") appeared in Eclipse Magazine no. 1, August 1983. The sequel appeared in Eclipse Comics, the followup anthology. This story was later reprinted by Comico, another spectacular 80s comic company that died too soon. A third story was later printed by Dark Horse as two single comics.

Wildey worked on two more Rio stories that never saw print. Until now.
There are a total of five stories in this book, plus some brilliantly handled supplemental material.

The new volume, a delight for those of us who love books (more on that below), is printed almost entirely from the original art. The colors are so much more vibrant than in the original printings. I suspect Wildey was working in color marker and watercolors over inks, based on the markmaking visible on some pages.

Rio is a mystery man, a reformed outlaw pardoned by President Grant, an ex-lawman, making his way in a matter-of-fact manner. He doesn't bemoan his fate. He just lives it.

The stories are classic Western stuff: buffalo hunts, railroads, mining, gambling, and a cast of supporting characters including incredibly fleshed out interpretations of Jesse James, Doc Holliday, and the Earp Brothers, who act like real jerks this time around.

Here's a choice bit of the Jesse James story.

In this story, Wildey shows contempt for the hypocrisy of the "civilized" people in the West. After Jesse is exposed and forced to leave town, it is revealed that the late sheriff had a clandestine arrangement with Jess to protect the town in return for safe haven. After gunslingers and ne'er-do-wells invade the town, the righteous folk who drove Jesse out beg Rio to help them. Given their shabby treatment of both Jesse and him, Rio simply rides on.

Two of the tales in this book are incomplete, and are presented in their state at the time of Wildey's death in 1994. Below are samples from those stories.

Even in this rough state, the quality of the art, writing and overall storytelling is readily apparent. I'm particularly charmed by the silhouette of the dog following Rio in the last page, the one that ends the stories in the book.

The book also contains some lovely portrait work of the title character.

The design of the book itself deserves comment. One of the challenges of reprinting older material is getting it right, and this is an arena in which IDW shines. While their Artist's Edition series is out of my price range, I do drool every time one is announced or released. One of the local stores (sadly, one that never seems to have a sale) has a copy of the Simonson Thor volume, and I get to visit it longingly every time I stop in.
But the Rio volume is comparatively affordable, especially if you do as we cheap bitches do and combine discounts until it's 30% off. Still able to patronize local comic stores and save a buck at the same time- yeah!
Rio, the Complete Saga is very well designed. The border elements on the above plates are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The above front cover scan doesn't show it, but there are decorative elements on the cover that reinforce the tone of the book. See this more complete image of the back cover for an idea of what I mean.

 

The right choice for a typeface. Nicely handled background pattern. Edge stripping reinforced by faux straps, simulating an old trunk. Clipped corners simulating an old school photo album (ask your mother or grandmother about those!).
And that's just the cover. The inside is even more striking, as alluded to in the above pages.
When choosing the Best of... annually, I try to avoid the traps to which many other such lists seem to fall prey. I don't list what I think are the most important, artistic (whatever that means) or profound books. I don't care about cutting edge stuff, unless it's well done. And I am SO bored by adults who deliberately try to draw like little kids!
What I care about is a book that will continue to pull me back to it a year, two years, five years or more later.
Since I've been reading my copies of the original Rio albums since they first came out, it's clear to me that this is such a book.

Tomorrow: The Best Comic of 2012.

Oh, and here's Wildey's interpretation of Jonny Quest, from a Comico miniseries offering his interpretations of classic TV episodes, just because it's so cool!

 

Best Comics of 2011 no. 3: Habibi

Yes, yes, I know it's on everybody's lists, and Craig Thompson is the darling of comics circles this year.
While I didn't much care for his previous magnum opus, Blankets, I did attend a lecture he gave at the school where I teach, Minneapolis College of Art & Design. I was sufficiently impressed to buy the book and get a spiffy signature and sketch.
And yes, it's a richly layered text, with multiple meanings interspersing tales of love and loyalty with lush and intelligent page design inspired by the Koran. The mathematics of the design are consistent with Islamic beliefs and serve as a framework for structuring the emotionally rich narrative.

And I am quite impressed with the layout and the dense, involving story.
The beauty of Thompson's page design is not lost on me.

But true though that all is, it's not the biggest reason it's on my Best list.
I love books.
I'm not talking about content, I'm talking about form. There's something satisfying about a well-crafted book. The beauty of a good tight binding, elegant end papers, a design and strategy to the physical properties of the volume itself that reinforces the content without calling undue attention to itself. these things inspire me and leave me awestruck.
So when Thompson talked about delaying getting Habibi printed for several months while he located a printer who could fulfill his specs on the volume, and then toured the printer and the bindery(!), I was hooked.

This is an elegant book with exquisite contents.
Few volumes of comic narrative are this well bound. This holds a proud place on my shelf next to the single volume limited edition of Bone, the lovely collection of Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly's LOCAL, and my limited edition first printing of Eisner's A Contract With God.
Great books should be a joy, either open or closed. Habibi is such a book.
Friday, Feb. 10: the final two of 2011.

Best Comics of 2011 No. 7: Ruse: The Victorian Guide to Murder

For those who don't recall, Crossgen was a comic publisher with lofty ambitions. They put out a quality product, paid their creators well and gave them benefits (!), and were quite professional in everything except their ambitions.
Recently, Marvel began publishing new material with some of the Crossgen characters. I was delighted to see that Ruse was among those properties.
The original story was a Sherlock Holmes pastiche with a couple novel twists. First, the aide de camp, the Watson character, was a woman, Emma Bishop. Second, she had magic powers that were kept hidden from the Holmes stand-in, Simon Archard.
However, at the end of the Crossgen series, Emma used her powers, losing them in the process. This subtly altered the dynamic, which previously focused on Emma's capacity to aid Simon without his knowledge (the stories are told in Emma's POV). This was deftly done by writer Mark Waid, who managed to avoid having Archard appear the fool in the process.
In the new incarnation, Emma is still invaluable, but must spend a considerable portion of the story trying to get Archard to acknowledge her as an equal.

The art in the original run was by Butch Guice, whose work doesn't always trip my trigger but was quite elegant on this title.  Guice and Waid managed to meld seamlessly in this book, with his Victorian touches coming across as accurate but not forced.
I'm not as wild about the new artist on the series, one Mirco Pierfederici. His work seems much cruder by comparison. It still works, just not as well. However, in fairness, it did grow on me by the end of this brief mini-series.
I picked up two of the single issues, then in frustration, decided to wait for the trade. Marvel's slavish loyalty to their blighted policy of running an ad every other page is not going to do wonders for their floppy sales, whatever's left of those sales. As this was a mini, I also didn't take exception to the equally grating Marvel policy of putting out wafer-thin collections.
The storyline itself involves deathtraps, a layered blackmail plot, and an old nemesis. I'm reluctant to say too much in case one has yet to read it.
There's a dashing element to these stories, and I do really like them if they're well-handled. In a recent post at The Beat, Kate Fitzsimons called Ruse "the most truly Holmesian of all the Holmes comics listed."

 Every issue, or chapter if you will, leads with a page of The Penny Arcadian. I love these little touches. Great device for verisimilitude, and advances and recaps the story nicely. And these are not so labyrinthine as those in the 2003 - 2010 series Rex Mundi, which used pages and pages of faux newspapers to fill in all manner of information about the story's world. Fascinating, but draining. Much more effective here!
This Ruse story is much more action driven than its predecessor, which was also pretty action-heavy.

In summary, this is not as strong as the original run of the title,which is on my short list for becoming a custom bound volume this year. But it's still highly engaging and very challenging, and well worth your time.
Next: Number 6: oh, baby!

It's a Ms. Tree to me....

Spent part of the afternoon with my casual buddy Terry Beatty and his son Kirby. I mean really, what else would a comic artist and comic hound name his son but Kirby?
The purose of the visit, aside from interrupting Terry's work drawing the next book in The Road to Perdition series, was to get him to sign my friend James' four (!) bound volumes of The Complete Ms. Tree in four hardbound volumes.
A quick word about binding. people are starting to get into it as a way of archiving collections, and organizing the content to your liking.  You assemble the material in the order you want it bound, send it to a book bindery that specializes in such things (and there are a few), and for a reasonable fee, you get back a book made of your comics. Some just send them in. Others remove ads, reorder stories, take books apart, order custom die stamps for the books' covers, and make dustjackets for them. It's about having books you want to read instead of comics shoved in a box because there's no other practical way to store them.
Well, Terry thought I was just bringing over some old TPBs, and he was blown away.

He was so delighted that he said James almost didn't get them back! As a fellow collector, James would appreciate the sentiment.

I hope.

But that's the thing about Terry. He's one of us.

 

He invited me to take a quick look at his studio, replete with 50s mini-bar holding his computer, all the cool Harryhausen statues and Big Little Books, all the comics we both love. It's rare these days that I have this kind of in-person time with someone else who really gets comics, especially someone around the same age, so it was too much fun.

And Kirby is a trip! Great little dude!

So much has happened in the past year. I've wondered a bit if my rekindled interest in my comic archive/library/collection/mausoleum was a way to avoid facing some of it. Lord knows this binding thing has eaten some time of late.

Maybe, but I doubt it.

My rekindled passion for comics is awakening other dormant passions and disciplines. I think it's there for me, and not me for it. To me and those like me, comics are akin to Jim Morrison's description of making music, a pure expression of joy.

It's hard for some people to understand how anyone can get that excited about a stack of comic books. I get that.

They're just not one of us.

Party on, Terry and Kirby!