Welcome to another Weekly Emanata, the MEGATONik review of comics. As these are a combination of readerly reaction and critical examination, expect spoilers. I’m going to write as if you, the reader, has some passing knowledge of comics, but feel free to post questions in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer.

Due to excessive real-life attempts to graduate and get a life in order, the Emanata will be coming every couple weeks for the next month or so. On the plus side of things, this means that we’ll be bringing you the best of two weeks of comics in every installment.

Boody. The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers
by Boody Rogers

Fantagraphics publishes such a wide array of books that it’s a little hard to believe that they can bring their focus intensely to bear on any one thing. However, they have, for years, put out beautiful reprints of comic strips such as Krazy Kat and The Peanuts; they’ve recently branched out into Golden Age comics, spearheaded by the amazing volume on Fletcher Hanks and followed up by this absolutely insane book collecting numerous stories by Boody Rogers. Rogers is not really a guy that people talk about; no one would mention him in breaths full of Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, and Harvey Kurtzman. I’m not going to make a case for doing that, but I would definitely make a case for reading this book no matter what sort of comics you like. These stories, mostly about Babe, “the amazon of the Ozarks,” and Sparky Watts, a unique sort of superman that mostly bums around with his friends until his body runs out of cosmic rays, at which point he shrinks to insect size. These shorts are always funny, and not in an ironic or “so bad it’s good” way. The situations are set up in an admirably mechanic way, the pieces introduced in serious fashion until they all click together in a mad mess of an ending. Each panel is packed with visual gags, creating a strange dissonance with the characters, each of whom sees nothing wrong with the situation he or she is in.

These things are so weird that they’re pretty difficult to describe. Fantagraphics is kind enough to offer a 12-page PDF of one of the reprinted stories. It’s absolutely worth your time, and keep in mind that the excerpt is, to me, the worst Sparky Watts story in the book. If only they’d offer the one with Hattie, the man who is only feet and a hat, and his quest for a bride.

Supermen! The First Wave of Heroes
by various

Here’s another offering from Fantagraphics, a sampling of Golden Age superheroes that, chances are, only genre hardliners will have heard of. I was a little worried that this book would be something along the lines of “Supermen! The Best We Could Cull from Public Domain.” The “Mammoth Book of…” line is somewhat notorious, at least in my mind, for this sort of reprint philosophy.

Luckily, while the characters are mostly unmemorable, the artists here are all early comic pioneers, flexing their muscles, pencilling straight from their crazy guts in a medium with no borders. I don’t want to give the traditional “artist rundown” of who’s on display here, but I was blown away by my first consistent exposure to Basil Wolverton and the chance to see Jack Cole, probably my favorite Golden Age artist, drawing a giant Chinese wizard digging a tunnel to America, all in glorious color, makes me gleeful.

Speaking of color, this book, just like Boody and the previously mentioned Fletcher Hanks reprint, is meticulously reproduced. Unlike other reprint formats, such as DC’s Archives line, these look to be taken from high-tech, I would say museum-quality, photographs. It manages to preserve the look of the original coloring and even the color and texture of the paper it was printed on. Since the paper isn’t ultra-glossy and since they’re softcover books, the cost is relatively cheap. Publishers take note: this is how reprints should be done.

Wasteland volume 3: Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos
written by Anthony Johnston
art by Christopher Mitten

Oni Press was kind enough to catch me up on this series (and Scott Pilgrim; see below) in preparation for the big 25th issue that’s coming out soon. Focusing on what I had previously assumed to be the supporting cast, Black Steel… ranges from personal religious violence to widespread mutant violence, advancing the plot, answering some questions, and upping the excitement level. It’s the best volume yet, I think, managing to make the political maneuvering inside the city of Newbegin as exciting as the huge war going on along its walls. I’m glad this series has survived this long and I hope it will continue as long as Johnston and Mitten have stories to tell.

Scott Pilgrim volume 5: vs. the Universe
by Bryan Lee O’Malley

My understanding of Scott Pilgrim was, up to this point, that it was madness and fun and bordered on non-sequiter, that the characters weren’t very real and weren’t supposed to be, that they were supposed to be twenty-something stand-ins that could be pushed and thrown and roundhouse-kicked into all sorts of insane and gratifying situations while O’Malley smashed his comic art up with pop understandings of video games and RPGs.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe rocked my understanding of this comic like a three-chord punk-fu song cranked to eleven. Without sacrificing anything that I’d previously enjoyed, the story brought the characters to a boil, making me realize what had been quietly simmering in them all along. I’m a little late, but I, like the rest of the internet, have Scott Pilgrim fever. I hate to say it, I hate to be a joiner, but it’s true. With a movie on the horizon (www.scottpilgrimthemovie.com with video blogs featuring Edgar Wright, Michael Cera, and more), it could become a nationwide epidemic. I feel so hyperbolic right now.

North World
by Lars Brown

Another Oni book, but I happened to pick this one up myself, on a whim, possibly spurred by my recent plunge into D&D nerdiness. The conceit of North World pretty much boils down to, “What if your typical fantasy adventure land was fast-forwarded to the modern day?” Monsters roam the land, people quest from nine to five for incorporated adventuring guilds, and so on. I expected a cutesy story that used the setup as a playground to joke around with fantasy tropes, and that’s certainly present, but I was surprised at the centrality of character in the book. The main character, Conrad, is like an older Holden Caulfield with a sword, and things naturally go awry when he’s assigned to hunt down a demon-summoning sorcerer in the hometown he left seven years ago.

Bad blood in familial and romantic relationships drives the story; the macguffin of a wizard never makes an appearance, but that doesn’t lessen the satisfaction I got from the book. North World is available here as a free webcomic. Check it out.

Popgun volume 3
by various

“Anthologies are a great idea. They let new comic artists hone their craft, get some publishing experience, and get some exposure without sticking them on a huge title.” I’ve read this sort of statement a number of times, and I’m pretty sure I agree with it. Popgun is an anthology from Image Comics, and there’s definitely some promising work in here. However, the stories tend to fall into one of a few categories. First are the concise little plots with clear storytelling, the stuff I’d like to see more of. Then there’s the beautiful art backed by a flimsy or nonexistent story, stuff that screams, “Pair me with a writer!” Lastly is the weird navel-gazing nonsense that seems to spring from a single “cool” idea or scene and ends up coming to nothing. I mean, does the medium need another pointless superhero story with nothing new to offer? Does it need an obtuse and, in the end, meaningless semi-noirish narrative lacking a plot arc? I’m not sure if there’s a single editorial drive here that I just don’t get or what, but I don’t really feel like this volume, despite the almost 500 pages of nicely-printed content, is worth thirty dollars. In an effort to save you that money, here’s the list of cartoonists that really stood out for me:

Sam Bosma is a great illustrator with a well-developed style that reminds me of parts of Yoshitaka Amano, Sam Hiti, and Guy Davis.

Andre Szymanowicz has a very refreshing style and put forth one of the strongest stories in the book.

Joshua Agerstrand has a funny, engaging, and hyperkinetic style that tells a story like a lost and frustrated Winsor McCay (which I mean in a good way).

Michael Dialynas has two stories told in two distinct styles. He’s an excellent colorist, too.

Connor Willumsen channels a bit of Paul Pope, but he’s an excellent artist in his own right with strong storytelling.

Ulises Farinas makes weird and surreal drawings, but not to his detriment. Far from it.

Zac Gorman’s “The Real Incidentals” is some sort of pop party superhero Superbad sort of thing that surpasses any string of adjectives I could make.

Bastard Road by Brian Winkeler & Dave Curd makes another appearance in this volume. Post-apocalyptic ultraviolent roller derby broads and giant cocks… it doesn’t seem like something I’d like, but I really really do.

If my descriptions aren’t enough, Popgun has a bunch of previews up at their website.