Sugar Glider

A long time ago... well about a month and a half ago anyway, I attended an event called the Canny Comic Con, in Newcastle city library. I could wax lyrical about what a great day it was, but others more eloquent than I have already done that, and they didn't wait over a month to do it, so I'll just say I had a fantastic time and move right along to the purpose of this post.

It's a somewhat embarrassing confession, for someone who claims to be a comics fan, but I've never actually bought, or read, anything from the UK indie/small press scene. It's down in large part to the fact that, aside from 2000AD, and more recently Clint and Strip, buying individual comics at all has simply not been my thing; I'm a trade paperback man, all the way. That came to a definitive end at the con though, when I walked away considerably lighter in the wallet and somewhat laden down with some new titles to try; one of which I shall now waffle about for a while.


Written by Daniel Clifford, with art from Gary Bainbridge, Sugar Glider is set in and around the city of Newcastle, and even someone like myself; who visits the city only semi-regularly and pretty much keeps his head down on the trudge between the 3 or 4 shops he visits (I'd only just discovered the above mentioned library's existence a week or so before the con was announced, and it's not exactly a small building); was able to recognise a few landmarks in the art which, sad though it may be to admit, did add a certain frisson to the reading experience; akin to seeing your home town on the telly, I suppose.

The story is that of Susie Sullivan (Clifford is obviously a Falcon Crest aficionado), a young girl struggling to figure out her place in life while all around her seem so sure of themselves; and have some pretty set ideas about her, too. In an attempt to escape the boredom and rigidity of the life her family is so keen for her to live, she adopts the identity of Sugar Glider, and becomes Newcastle's very own vigilante protector.

I'm not a big fan of superhero comics in general but Sugar Glider won me over instantly, and not just because of the 'home town' novelty. Susie is an engaging and endearing lead, not least because her own insecurities match so closely my own at her age; minus the sporting career of course, because let's not get carried away; and the supporting cast on the domestic front are all instantly recognisable to anyone who's ever, well, had a family. What teenager hasn't chafed at the confines of babysitting duty? Whose Mother didn't routinely stamp up the stairs with the familiar "I'll kill her/him" refrain, spilling from their lips? And what teenager hasn't had that one friend, who could so easily become that little bit more?

These characters and Susie's relationships with them, so effectively and economically presented to us by Clifford, are what make the comic come alive. Susie isn't distanced from her charges by wealth or status, like your Batmans, or the lack of same like Spider-Man, or by pure dint of biology like Superman or your X-laddies; she is, in a very real sense, one of them.

It will be very interesting to see where the 'soap opera' aspect of the series goes in future issues. The comic certainly wastes no time playing with it, giving us a moment at the end of #1 that I suspect most series would have teased and withheld for months or even years, resulting in a very different 'staus quo' for #2 than we might have been expecting.

Family life aside though, what of the heroics? One of the 'back of my mind' worries about buying single issues was always the threat of long breaks between releases; something compounded in the case of small press comics by the fact that these people obviously have day jobs to be dealing with; and so the possibilty of losing the thread of the tale, but the format they've chosen for these issues is the 'case of the week with a bit of world building in the background' model and it works really well, neatly sidestepping that problem by giving us a complete tale in each issue.

Tales which, costumes aside, are as rooted in the day to day as the soap opera elements. The 'villains' are as out of their depth as Susie is, pushed to their actions by their dissatisfaction with their lives and the world around them. There's no Doctor Octopus or Viktor Von Doom here, nor even a Kingpin or a Lex Luthor; just ordinary people forced to extremes. There are hints in #1, and much bigger hints in #2, that this may change in future stories, but for now it's refreshing.

I've talked a lot about the story so far, because frankly I always feel a bit out of my depth when I discuss art in comics. I am very much the embodiment of the old 'I know what I like' cliche, but seem to be totally incapable of putting into words just why I like something.

So, I hope Gary Bainbridge can forgive my apparently giving his contributions short shrift, because I can assure you that his work is as much a part of why I loved these issues as Clifford's story was. It's not the cleanest art, and it has a very cartoonish style which I think normally would have put me off (if pushed on my art preferences, I usually offer up 'I like realistic stuff better' as a half hearted response), but in this instance it works brilliantly. For me, anyway.


So, engaging characters you want to spend time with, exciting adventure stories you can actually enjoy without waiting months for the ending, and really nice artwork (even if I can't tell you why it's nice). All in all, I can't recommend this title enough. You can find out more about it here and if you're so inclined, you can buy it here. You can thank me later.

The Thirty-Nine Steps

Shockingly, it has taken me many weeks to read the book I'm going to discus this week. Far longer, as I'm sure you'll all agree, than it ever should have. Why?

Well, it's certainly not because of the page count; the things barely more than a pamphlet.

And it isn't due to the somewhat over egged, melodramatic language used (which I'm aware is a product of both it's time and the genre the author was attempting to emulate), because if you can get through as many Terry Goodkind books as I have, you lose all fear you may once have had of impenetrable language.

It isn't even the somewhat elitist, racist and unsympathetic central character, although he is all of those things.

In truth, the reason it took me so long to conquer the scant 98 pages that comprise The Thirty-Nine Steps, is that I lacked the motivation to do so.

The flaws I mentioned above are all real. They are also, in large part, understandable. John Buchan was a product of his time and of his class; he crafted, in Richard Hannay, a character every inch the 'hero' figure of the day.That we look upon him slightly less kindly is more a problem with our understanding of the historical context, than with Buchan's writing. Similarly, in attempting to emulate a particular genre (the disposable 'Dime' Thriller), Buchan found himself following the conventions of said genre; conventions which perhaps didn't survive their trans Atlantic journey in particularly good shape. There are, after all, some very good reasons why we don't make 90210 in Britain, and why Darren Starr never attempted a remake of Crossroads.

So those issues aside; as I was more than willing to overlook them; what did affect my motivation to finish The Thirty-Nine Steps? Put simply, once you get past the initial set-up, which moves like a freight train (a murder in chapter one, the hero on the lam by chapter 2, all done in 17 pages combined), it quickly settles into a formulaic rut, so that urge, that need, that all the great books give you, to know what happens next; that unputdownable, pageturner element; is totally missing. You don't need to read on, because you know what'll happen next; a few pages of Hannay describing the scenery, a hint of danger from a circling plane that just misses spotting him, a close call with his pursuers on the ground and a vaguely comical encounter with a passing civilian.

In all fairness, the pages that describe the scenery are undeniably well written and infused with a genuine affection by the author (perhaps unsurprising given Buchan's background), and the implacable, relentless nature of his pursuers allows for a degree of tension, if not to the extent that the author intended (and certainly not to the extent implied by the hype). As far as the supporting characters go, however, they verge so closely on caricature as to render the suspension of disbelief impossible.

What then, was my final analysis of this book, once I did finally bite the bullet and trawl through the closing chapters? Well, I didn't enjoy it; let's get that out of the way first, although I doubt it comes as a surprise after the preceding paragraphs. Honestly though, everything I said in those comments would have been forgiven, had the book built to a satisfactory conclusion. Give a story a good ending, and that is what people will often take away from it; all earlier sins, if not forgiven, then perhaps forgotten. Buchan, in perhaps his biggest failing of them all, doesn't do that here.

Hannay manages, by some pretty lucky guesswork (we're told that Hannay has a history of making assumptions that turn out to be correct, so he's willing to accept his own guesswork as fact; OK), to figure out where the bad guys are, heads up there, confronts his suspects, thinks he might be wrong, decides he isn't because one of them does a distinctive hand gesture, and then there is a bit of a perfunctory scuffle before the bad 'uns are all arrested. The end.

It's strange, given how fast the first couple of chapters moved, but once Hannay goes to the villains house to confront them the story, which should be accelerating to it's conclusion, slows down dramatically and grind tortuously through one of the dullest hero/villain conversations ever, before resolving itself in two pages once the action finally does start. The pacing, to be frank, is all over the place.

So there you go; my first attempt to write up something regarded as a 'classic' on this blog. It didn't go well, did it? Sorry. Although I do genuinely think that this is one of those books that s called a classic because a few people decided it was, a few others didn't want to rock the boat, and it just snowballed from there. It really is nothing special.

Fables: Legends In Exile

The Big Bad Wolf teams up with Snow White, both under the employ of Old King Cole, to investigate the disappearance and possible murder of Rose Red.


Suspects include Bluebeard and Jack (of Beanstalk fame, amongst other things). Oh, and Snow White herself, for a while.

The pair are distracted by; the return to town of Snow's ex-husband Prince Charming, her having to deal with the marital problems of Beauty and the Beast and him having his sofa invaded by one of the Three Little Pigs; and numerous other bumps in the road.

Are you laughing yet, shaking your head in disbelief at the notion that this story was ever written? I'm sure that was the reaction of many people when the Vertigo comic series Fables was first launched, all those years ago; I know I certainly had less than positive expectations when I first heard about it. Happily though, I am a terrible 'trade-waiter' when it comes to comics and not even a particularly efficient one either so by the time I came to thinking about adding a new series to my reading list Fables had been around a good while and the almost universal praise being thrown it's way convinced me to give it a go. I adored it from the off.

SNOW WHITE
All of these characters, and many more, are being forced to co-exist in a small immigrant community in New York because they have been forced from their respective homelands by a fearsome all-conquering enemy known only as 'The Adversary'. Far from a cohesive race, they are constantly dealing with a lot of old tensions, that no amount of general amnesties can expunge. This means that despite his working as the Sheriff, 'Bigby' Wolf is still mistrusted by many of those he wronged in his days as 'Big Bad Wolf'; the thought of Rose Red having a relationship with Bluebeard (he of the unfortunate wives) rubs Snow White up the wrong way; and the wicked old witch of yore is questioned, lest she have 'grown tired of the taste of gingerbread'. As who-dunnits go, it's a doozy.

BIGBY WOLF
The key to the whole thing is that it is played totally straight. We all know, as readers, that the premise is ridiculous, but this series works because the creators say "yes, it is a ridiculous premise but if it weren't; if these characters were real, what would they be like and if they were forced to live in secret among normal folk, what effect would that have on them? Personally, I'm a big fan of taking the ridiculous seriously; two of my favourite TV shows had premises which, when you read them on paper seemed like something you'd see in a half hour kids slot but when produced, by a team that took them seriously, became fantastic mature drama. I speak of 'the college student who is really a secret agent for the Government' (Alias) and 'the High School student who is actually a crack PI' (Veronica Mars). With that in mind, I probably should have given the creators of Fables more of the benefit of the doubt from the get-go but, you know, we all have our lines in the sand.

This 1st storyline, which comprised issues 1-5 of the ongoing comic, and is collected in the trade paperback Legends In Exile, is a pretty much textbook example of how to kickstart a 'hopefully' long running series, the who-dunnit aspect allowing the reader to be introduced to all (or most; my personal favourite makes her debut in the 2nd arc) of the major players because they are all investigated at one point or another. That aside, it also works as a standalone story. The who-dunnit works as precisely that, with a mystery to be solved, a cast of characters to choose from and a 'while I have you all here' denouement that is not only funny and charming, but also makes perfect sense. All the clues were there (some of them on page 1, you'll kick yourself), the story hangs together nicely, and it's clear that this is a writer who knew exactly what he was doing from the outset.

So, if you can put aside any anti-comics prejudice, and put aside any anti-fairytale prejudice, you could do an awful lot worse than check out Fables: Legends In Exile, for a proper, meaty, clever thriller. And do stick around, because things only get wilder in the 2nd arc.

Awesome Relaunch! Kinda. Ok, not really.

Hello, and welcome once more to The Untitled Blog. It's been a while, so it has, but never fear, I'm back now; calm thineselves. Well, I say I'm back... it'll be next week if I'm honest.

Next Friday - make a note, write it in blood - should see the first post in a long while, here on the blog. I'll have tidied up the blog list, so in the unlikely event that my opinion is enough to sway you, you'll at least be assured of going somewhere with merit, and I'm putting a list of folk on twitter that you should be following if you loves you some good readings.

And that's about all I have to say, really. Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll be regaling you with my unqualified opinions on everything from Snow White's sexual tension with The Big Bad Wolf, one man's desperate attempt to evade a scary bi-plane by hiding in Scottyland and the launch issue (long after everyone else has stopped caring) of a brand new anthology comic. (I promise not to judge it's worth by the font used on the cover) So until then, get lost.

Horus Heresy : Nemesis

When last I spoke on here about the Horus Heresy series it was regarding the novel Mechanicum by Graham MacNeill. I spoke of liking the novel because it focused far more on the character interactions and much less on the technological aspects of the story. When the book which followed Mechanicum, Tales Of Heresy, turned out to be a collection of short stories rather than a novel I was buoyed by the fact that several of said stories moved even further down that trail, exploring the wider world that the series is set in and giving us a couple of lively and engrossing character pieces that had no need of genetically engineered supermen laying waste to entire worlds to generate drama. I inferred from their inclusion that the series as a whole might be in the process of widening its horizons somewhat, which pleased me.

Don't get me wrong; I've nothing against a bit of the old uber-violence now and again and after all, this is a series about a massive galaxy wide civil war set millenia in the future so there was always going to be a bit of tech and bravado involved; but I do think that a little bit of variety would stand the series in good stead. I mentioned at the time to a colleague of mine that perhaps a novel set in the shady political corridors of power might be a good idea, or an espionage novel set in this world. There had to be spies, right? In a war that big of course they were there. Sadly, what we got instead was two more novels about Space Marines blowing up aliens and then having a go at each other with their big guns and massive ships. Business as usual. Good stuff, but nothing especially original.So imagine my surprise then when we got Nemesis, by James Swallow as the 13th book in the series.

Almost completely eschewing the world of the Astartes (Space Marines), apart from brief moments in the prologue and epilogues and a brief but bloody and shocking cameo at the mid way point for an Astartes we'd seen before in the books, Nemesis focuses on the shadowy world of political assassination, with both sides despatching agents to assassinate the figurehead of the other. Leaving aside the fact that we know both sides will fail, because the series is a long way from over, the change of focus works well, allowing for a much more intimate look at the characters.

For much of the first half of the book we follow two stories; first, the formation of the team sent by the Loyalists to assassinate rebel leader Horus and then the events that unfold when they actually go out on the mission; and second, the story of a policeman on an Imperial world, investigating a series of ritualistic murders while his world suffers under the weight of rumours concerning the imminent arrival of Horus' rebel forces. As the story progresses into the back half, though, this strand takes a very dark - or darker - turn, and we realise that with this storyline nothing is what it seems.

I'm not massively versed in the futuristic Warhammer universe - the Horus Heresy books being my only foray into it so far - so it's likely that I'm not doing a very good job of describing why this book is so different from what has come before, or why I'm so pleased that it is, despite having enjoyed those earlier stories, but it is and I am. I sincerely hope that the wait for James Swallow to contribute another book to this series is not as long as the last one (he previously supplied Book 4), because he has proved himself here to be an author who can absolutely nail what I want more of in these books.

100 Bullets: First Shot, Last Call

I recently began a re-read of all the Graphic Novels in my collection that are part of series I never finished, with the intention of getting reacquainted with the various characters and storylines before delving into the new volumes which I can now afford to resume purchasing. First series on my list was 100 Bullets, by Brian Azzerello (writer) and Eduardo Risso (artist).


100 Bullets begins simply enough, with a young girl (Isabelle 'Dizzy' Cordova) being released from prison and returning to the neighbourhood she grew up in. There, she learns that little has changed since she went inside. The players may be different but the rules are the same; the gangs still rule, the cops are still the enemy and a persons greatest weapon is still their reputation. The biggest change she finds is in herself; despite only being in her early 20's, Dizzy has grown old; too old, possibly, to ever walk these streets the same way again.

Dizzy
Not long after her return home Dizzy is confronted by mysterious black suited stranger Agent Graves. Offering her irrefutable evidence of the identities of those responsible for her greatest loss, and an untraceable gun with an equally untraceable 100 bullets to do about it what she will. Use this weapon and no law enforcement agency will touch her, she is told.

Will she use them,and in the process surrender herself to the life of violence she has paid lip service to leaving behind? And just as importantly, how will this seemingly small and personal conundrum support an ongoing comic book for any kind of lengthy duration? It is, after all, a fairly finite premise.

Agent Graves
The answer to the first question, and the journey Dizzy goes on to arrive at her decision, forms the meat of the story of the first three issues of 100 Bullets. It's a fairly straightforward tale of revenge and redemption that serves as a neat introduction to the concept behind the book and while the identities of the villains and certain revelations concerning Dizzys nearest and dearest are unlikely to surprise many hardened thriller readers it still manages to grip you throughout.

Sometimes the journey is King and the destination just an excuse to go on it and this journey is about the people; people caught in a cycle of violence and deprivation that they are powerless to escape from, short of going to jail or the grave. There is a moment in a park, with Dizzy and her old group of friends, as Dizzy realises that her generation are considered past it - "We old...We all in our twenties, we got our babies, we old girls" - that serves to remind us of this. These girls are stuck, and the truth is, some of them wouldn't have it any other way, because they don't know any other way.

The answer to the second question - How will this small, personal story propel an ongoing comic book? - is that it won't, this series is shooting for bigger things than that. In issue 4 we meet a new protagonist - we've left Dizzy behind for now, but I'm sure she'll be back - with his own tale of woe, his own cross to bear and his own revenge to take, should he choose to accept Agent Graves offer of those oh so tempting 100 bullets.

Lee Dolan
Lee Dolan, once successful in business and with a happy family life, is now living working as a bartender in a slum bar, a shell of his former self, his business gone and his family having disowned him. All of this because someone else, someone much more powerful than he, decided to play games with his life. Graves points him in the direction of the person responsible, one Megan Dietrich, and lets him make his own mind up what to do about it. Dolan makes much the same decision as Dizzy did, but his enemies are of a different nature to hers and events have a very different outcome.

Megan Deitrich
Hints are dropped that Agent Graves has an agenda totally apart from helping his bullet recipients and there is obviously a lot more to Dolans tormentors than meets the eye, so we leave issue 5 - and this first trade collection - with the sense that the world of 100 bullets is much vaster and much scarier than Dizzy Cordova or Lee Dolan have ever dreamed, and that they and no doubt plenty of others, are mere pawns in the games of some very powerful people. I for one am champing at the bit to see what the next move is.

Brian Azzarello

Eduardo Risso

Vampire Diaries. Whats changed? Pt2

So, I waffled, at great length and to no real point, about how the Vampire Diaries of the books differed from the Vampire Diaries of television, over on my TV blog a couple of days ago. It be here Now, because absolutely no-one demanded it it, I'm going to waffle a bit more. Not about the differences in content this time, but rather about the differences in quality.

I could just save us all a lot of time and say that the books are rotten while the show is great. I won't though, because quite aside from the fact that to do so would be irredeemably rude I do actually quite like to waffle on. Hey, no-ones forcing you to read it. (But please do read it.)

In this day and age, it would take the most militant of literary snobs to say that there is not a great deal of original and - more importantly - enjoyable material to be found in the teen (sorry, Young Adult) section of your friendly neighbourhood bookshop or library. (Kids reading this after 2012 can ask their parents what a library is.) Lovers of fantasy are especially well served in this regard, with such series as Lemony Snicket, Skullduggery Pleasant and of course Harry Potter bringing me much pleasure over the years; not to mention Darren Shan for when you're in a more gruesome frame of mind. All of which, coupled with the fact that the show based on them is so good, led me to go into the enterprise of reading the Vampire Diaries books by L. J. Smith with slightly less trepidation than I probably should have done.

I knew going in that I wasn't the target audience for these books. Unfortunately, the target audience which I don't belong to is not that of teenage girls looking for some horror tinged romance. No, it's easily pleased, pseudo-goth hormone factories, all too eager to spew their squee all over anything with the slightest hint of 'brooding bad boy who's also smoking hot' and desperate for reassurance that yes, even if you are a vacuous tart with morals in the gutter and no ambition to rise any higher in life than someones trophy floozy, you too can find true love with a good looking guy willing to overlook your borderline sociopathic character flaws because you're hot and you put out. Because the protagonist (and presumably the audience identification figure) of these novels really is that unpleasant.

Don't get me wrong though, the books aren't without merit. If you forget about the hideous central character - and the horrible writing as Smith desperately tries to convince you that this girl deserves happiness, despite treating all about her like turds on her shoe - then the main storyline that runs through these first 4 novels is actually fairly decent. Not great, mind you, and hardly original, but decent. Decent enough in fact that it formed the spine of the main story arc of the TV show for it's first 2 seasons.

Beyond the central story there are moments. Moments that make you think that there is something deeper here, some much better book trying desperately to claw it's way free. Stefan and Matt, for example; the brief glimpses we get of their friendship feels real, in a way that none of the other relationships do. If only that had translated onto the screen, then maybe the Matt of TV wouldn't have become such an insignificance on the show. There's the casual menace exuded by Klaus, so convinced is he of his superiority. Or the moment when we find out that Damon stood by and allowed a girl to be killed, not because he didn't care, as the others had assumed and accused him of, but because he couldn't save her as no-one had thought to invite him into the house. This side of Damon; the conflicted man who wants to be good but is too proud to admit it and so just lets people assume he's bad; is very much something which the producers of the TV show have run with and it has served to make Damon one of the most intriguing characters on the show.

Moments like these are few and far between though, and the books have just as many that would make any rational man throw them down and run screaming for his sanity to the nearest Terry Pratchett stockist. Most of the these come from the aforementioned horrible lead but we also get the one where said lead dies and within days her best friend is fantasising about her boyfriend. She's grieving of course, but he's just so hot! You have to get your priorities right in this life. Then there is the situation with Meredith and Alaric. The sexual tension leading to full on romance. Between the schoolgirl and her teacher. That is barely remarked upon, and never scathingly. As mentioned in part one, I can recognise the irony of being okay with a schoolgirl having an affair with a guy hundred of years her senior but calling foul with a few years age difference but here's the thing; HE'S HER TEACHER! IT'S A BOOK AIMED AT TEENAGERS! Sorry, and maybe this makes me a prude, but I'm very glad that the Alaric love shifted to Jenna in the show. You have to draw the line somewhere.

The real plus point of these books, and the first time I found myself actively enjoying them, was the build up to the big final confrontation between the 'good guys' and 'Big Bad' Klaus. He's massively outnumbered - even if you count his little understudy Tyler, who is properly a villain in the books, if a naff one - but it never feels like he's the underdog. It's a long held maxim that heroes should never outnumber villains because no matter how bad the bad guy is, ganging up on him doesn't feel fair. This rule is broken here, and to brilliant effect, because a large part of his menace; of what makes him so chilling, is that Klaus knows he's outnumbered, knows he's facing two centuries old vengeance crazed vampires and a very powerful witch, amongst others, and he just doesn't care. He's going to win. That's all there is to it as far as he's concerned. This lot are just flies to be swatted.

Sadly the good work that Smith does in these finishing stages is then thrown away when she chooses to tack on the end one of the most blatant "this makes absolutely no f***ing sense!" cop-out endings I've ever read in my entire life, and I've read a lot of books over the years. A dead character comes back to life and everyone has a dance. This is literally how the book ends. After a big part of the good guys winning was down to this dead person using up the last of her ability to affect this plane, and one last excruciatingly bad romance scene was forced on us, this character seemed pretty much dead and gone for good but apparently not. Smith wants a happy ending so she's back, making a total mockery of the sacrifice made to defeat Klaus. I read it 3 times and I have no clue how she came back but she's back. I actually swore at the book, it was that bad. From what I can gather, there may well be some repercussions from this in the new trilogy but that's no excuse. The new books have come about because of the success of the show. The ending we get here was how the story ended originally. Fixing it 20years later doesn't change what a nonsense it was.

So, the books aren't all bad, but they're bad enough that I feel no qualms about calling them bad books. That Kevin Williamson, Julie Plec and their team have managed to make a show as good as the one they have, with source material as weak as this is, is a real testimony to their skill, talent and hard graft. I may complain from time to time that it is a little too densely plotted but I know that that's just down to the gaps in scheduling caused by being so close behind the US screenings (I don't know how American audiences put up with it, although I understand they get pertinent re-runs during the gaps, to help them remember what's going on).

I hope this hasn't been overly negative. I've tried really hard to get away from the 'these books are rubbish' tone that early drafts had. I hate to slag off anyones work too badly, when they've poured their sweat into it.