The Wraith by Joe Hill

Published by IDW Publishing on August 12, 2014

Joe Hill, the pen name of Stephen King's son, has written a couple of best-selling horror novels, including NOS4A2 . He has also written some acclaimed comic books. The Wraith combines the world Hill created in NOS4A2 with the graphic novel form. It is a self-contained, stand-alone story.

Charlie Manx drives a 1938 Rolls Royce Wraith. The Wraith comes in handy when taking children to Christmasland, where every day is Christmas ... forever. Joe Hill's prose fills in Charlie's chilling personality as Charlie describes his upbringing (in which a combined mortuary-whorehouse figures prominently) and explains how, as the result of being swindled into investing in Christmasland, Charlie came to acquire the Wraith.

Eventually we get interlocking stories in different time frames about an uninsured guy who can't get medical treatment for his son and a group of convicts who break out of a prison van and get help from a fellow who helps people disappear. The fellow picks them up in ... you guessed it ... a Rolls Royce Wraith.

The story is strange until we arrive at Christmasland, when it turns truly bizarre. And gruesome. But intermixed with the gore are some poignant moments and sympathetic characters. The Wraith is not as memorable or as substantial as the work Hill did in the Locke & Key series, but it has its own bloody appeal.

RECOMMENDED

This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki

Published by First Second on May 6, 2014

A graphic novel as good as This One Summer is hard to find. The story revolves around a single summer in the life of a girl who is on the cusp of adolescence. Everything is formative at that age. Events big and small all add up to shape a future that the child is only beginning to imagine. This is a story about the perils of family, the difficulty of growing up, and the process of learning to cope with life's complexity.

Rose and her parents go to their summer cottage on the beach where Rose hangs out with her friend Windy. They talk about boys (of course) and sex (of course), two topics about which they know little. They swim and watch scary movies and bond. They're surrounded by adult drama that they often don't quite understand. Rose's mother is unhappy and is doing her best to make her unhappiness known to the world, creating tension in Rose's summer, particularly after her father returns to the city. Rose takes a keen interest in a scruffy 18-year-old boy from the corner store although she doesn't know how to deal with her curiosity about him. Fortunately, she hasn't entered the raging hormone teenage years. The boy has, of course, and his raging hormones have gotten him into a messy situation.

I love Rose's attitude. Here's her take on Sex and the City: "Like, so they're 40 and they're having sex. Who cares?" Rose is always trying to puzzle out the meaning of adult behavior, even the behaviors of those who are only a few years older. Mariko Tamiko captures that uncertainty perfectly.

I also love the way Jillian Tamaki's art nearly always conveys a sense of action, even if it's just a bird in flight or a blowing leaf. As they should be in a graphic novel, many panels are free of words. The art (all sketched in blue) creates just the right atmosphere for the story.

The story is low-key, told at a relaxed summer pace, and is utterly convincing. It's also surprisingly captivating and brutally honest without ever becoming melodramatic. It captures a stage of life better than most text-based literary novels can manage. Fans of serious graphic novels -- and any fan of good story-telling -- should consider spending time with This One Summer.

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The Unwritten by Mike Carey

Published by Vertigo on September 24, 2013

The Unwritten is an outgrowth of a comic book series of the same name. While it serves as an origin story for the comic book's protagonist, the reader need not be familiar with the comic book series to enjoy this volume as a stand-alone graphic novel.

This incarnation of The Unwritten is a story of creation or conception, of an author giving birth to a story. The story is about Tommy Taylor, the son of two powerful mages who, as a baby, floated away in a basket from the sinking ship on which his parents died. The baby is swallowed by a whale and delivered to a village where a wizard lives. The wizard names the baby Tommy and, for much of his young life, raises him in ignorance of his heritage. Tommy discovers the nature of his parents at about the time his parents’ enemy (a vampire, of course) discovers Tommy. The vampire wants whatever was on the ship. At the same time, he wants something from Tommy that Tommy doesn’t have … or does he?

Not coincidentally (or so he comes to believe), the author of Tommy’s story unexpectedly fathers a son of his own. Naturally, he names the baby Tommy, but as his wife descends into a well of depression, the author finds that he’s better at parenting a fictional child than a real one. But is there, in the end, any difference between the real and the fictional Tommy?

The Unwritten is an ambitious story that, after a slow start, grew on me until I became fully absorbed. That’s largely due to the quality of the storytelling. In addition to some swashbuckling fantasy, there are a couple of unconventional family dramas here, and a nice lesson about the possibility of being special even if you aren’t gifted. Although it’s possible to anticipate much of what happens to the fictional Tommy in the second half, the story is still satisfying, while the deeper story (involving the “real” Tommy) charts a more surprising course.

RECOMMENDED

Bad Houses by Sara Ryan

Published by Dark Horse on November 12, 2013

I never thought much about (or paid any attention to) estate sales until I read this graphic novel. The contents of houses tell stories about their owners, the choices they made, what they held dear. People cling to possessions they don’t really want. Professional and amateur vultures devour the things left behind by the dead. One person’s junk becomes another person’s treasure, an endless cycle of acquisition and disposal.

Bad Houses is a story of ordinary people in an ordinary town (aptly named Failin). A bitter son puts his aging mother in a dilapidated assisted living center. He begins to date Danica, one of the center’s employees. Danica is a hoarder. Her daughter Anne feels suffocated by her mother’s obsession with the objects from her past. Anne begins to date Lewis, a young man who wants to escape his mother’s vice-like grip. Lewis works for his mother, conducting estate sales. He’s never known his father. In the midst of all this family drama, we learn things about relationships among the characters that they don’t know themselves.

Can people change their lives? One of the characters says that lives change all the time, and that’s true, but they don’t always change according to our plans. Some of the characters want to leave Failin but feel trapped by their circumstances. When should we hold on to things … or people? When should we let go? Sara Ryan examines these questions in a surprisingly moving, thought-provoking story.

The lives of the characters weave together in a graphic novel that is elegant in its simplicity, insightful in its complexity. The sketchy illustrations add nuance to the text.

RECOMMENDED

Harlan Ellison's 7 Against Chaos by Harlan Ellison and Before Watchmen: Nite Owl/Dr. Manhattan by J. Michael Straczynski

I don't usually review graphic novels, but I'm making an exception for two that were written by writers whose storytelling ability I particularly admire.

7 Against Chaos by Harlan Ellison

Published by DC Comics on July 16, 2013

Earth has been plagued by a series of disasters: people have spontaneously combusted or transformed into snakes, a harbor changed into a desert, a mountain of ice appeared from nowhere. To save the Earth from crisis, high level computers have directed a robed man to assemble a team from various colonies around the solar system. A slave who is a female version of Edward Scissorhands, a faceless cat burglar, a woman who can shoot fire from her fingers, a fellow who has been reengineered as an insect, a robot, and a technological whiz with telepathic tendencies join the robed man to "fight for the fabric of reality itself."

Harlan Ellison -- the best writer of short stories in the history of science fiction -- has given us a time travel story combined with a "humanize the robot" story combined with a some superheroism stories combined with a couple of love stories combined with a quest/adventure story combined with an alien invasion story, all wrapped around a good versus evil story, with evil personified by someone or something named Erisssa. And, of course, it's all ultimately an homage to Seven Samurai. You can't fault Ellison for lacking ambition.

Although the story is entertaining -- and the particular way in which Ellison combines the alien invasion with time travel is innovative -- I can't say that 7 Against Chaos resonated with me in the same way that Ellison's best work has done over the years. In fact, the authorial voice doesn't sound like Ellison to me, which makes sense, since Paul Chadwick not only did the artwork but wrote much of the dialog. Chadwick's art serves its purpose but it didn't stun me.

Maybe I'm a little disappointed because, like most of Ellison's eighty zillion fans, I expect to be blown away by every glob of spit that comes out of his mouth, and 7 Against Chaos just didn't grab me. Had this been developed as a twelve-issue miniseries, I'd probably be more excited about it. An awful lot happens in a limited number of pages, and that means an awful lot is sacrificed. The characters are strong but character development is too often rudimentary. The story comes across as the outline for an epic blockbuster but doesn't deliver a blockbuster punch, largely because it's too condensed to achieve epic status. None of this means I dislike the end result -- it's fun and clever and it displays flashes of the power Ellison so readily wields -- but I see a lot of potential here that wasn't maximized. I'd recommend it anyway (albeit with reservations) because ... well ... it's Ellison.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Before Watchmen: Nite Owl/Dr. Manhattan by J. Michael Straczynski

Published by DC Comics on July 16, 2013

I'm reviewing this because I'm a fan of Alan Moore's brilliant Watchmen series (the serialized graphic novel, not the movie) and of J. Michael Straczynski.  Straczynski shows his versatility in Before Watchmen: Nite Owl/Dr. Manhattan. This volume collects three stories. The first focuses on Nite Owl and his relationship with Rorshach. With Straczynski at the writing helm, you know there's a good chance that irreverent humor will balance the story's dramatic content. But Straczinski also excels at gritty, atmospheric noir, and there's plenty of that here. There's even a certain amount of sleaze, but it's poetic sleaze. Straczinski quotes Alan Ginsberg and he may well have relied on Ginsberg as inspiration for the raw earthiness of the story. When Straczinski is given license to do his best writing, you're going to get sex and hypocrites moralizing about sex. You'll see all sides of human nature, the pure and the damaged, and it will be delivered with unvarnished honesty.

The tongue-in-cheek tone that characterizes Nite Owl's story gives way to achingly serious writing when the story shifts to Dr. Manhattan. The blue guy, in all his quantum possibility, is a deeper character, given to philosophical introspection. Straczinski plays with time streams and potential realities to develop a heartfelt story about the difference (if there is one) between what is and what might have been, a story about the power of choice, including the choices we are powerless to make. This is really an impressive piece of writing, some of Straczinski's finest work.

Another shift in tone occurs in the third story, focusing on Moloch the Mystic (and, to a lesser extent, Ozymandius). This time the story is twisted, introducing elements of horror as Straczinsky explains Moloch's past. There isn't as much depth here, but it's just a two issue add-on that I regarded as a little treat, neither adding nor detracting from the two main features.

Straczinski stays true to Alan Moore's wonderful characters. Rorschach is as messed up as ever. Straczinski gives us some additional insight into the cause of his inner turmoil, but he doesn't alter the character in any fundamental way, and he's faithful to Rorschach's peculiar speech patterns. Dr. Manhattan is his brooding, enigmatic self. This is a dazzling display of storytelling. It isn't Alan Moore, but it isn't meant to be.

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