TRIPLE SHOT: THE SHADOW: YEAR ONE #1, THE BLACK BEETLE: NO WAY OUT #2 & BATWOMAN #17

This week’s Triple Shot loads you up with two pulp heroes, one old and one new, and the conclusion of the World’s Finest team up of Batwoman and Wonder Woman in issue Batwoman #17.

THE SHADOW YEAR ONE #1 (OF 8)
Writer: Matt Wagner
Artist: Wilfredo Torres
Publication Date: February 20, 2013
Price: $3.99
Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment
UPC:  72513020219201011

The origin of The Shadow as told by Matt Wagner (Grendel, Batman) starts this week in an eight issue limited series from Dynamite Entertainment.

The book opens in Cambodia with The Shadow investigating the crimes of The White Tiger, and meting out justice on his own, all the while hiding behind a red scarf.  Months later, alter ego Lamont Cranston disembarks from a cruise ship with seven large valets in tow, piquing the interest of a Clark Kent-looking newspaper man. Close by, a newsie hawks of Black Tuesday and the market crash.

Seems like The Shadow returns to the States just in time to secure his assets and protect the night! 

The action builds up quickly in New York City as gangster Guiseppe ‘Joe’ Massaretti is overwhelmed by a mysterious voice in his head commanding that he take advantage of the banks being in turmoil and to rein in the city’s rival gangs. This momentary hallucination weighs on his mind as his goons chauffeur him around town.

Guiseppe isn’t the only one wobbly by voices in his head! At a Prohibition Era homecoming party, Cranston unprovoked declares, “The weed of crime..takes root EVERYWHERE, I dare say.”

Easy, pal. Someone get him a bathtub Tom Collins!

Joe’s extravagant gal pal Margo Lane is also at the party to make the acquaintance of Lamont Cranston and to continue a quarrel she had earlier with the mobster. Conveniently, The Shadow knows when he sees trouble spark up and makes his presence known to the bad guys.

This is a really fun start to the origin of a character so important to comics and pop culture that I for one had no familiarity with, besides last December’s Masks title from Dynamite and also the 1994 Alec Baldwin feature film. 

We’re cranking through episodes of Boardwalk Empire, and it’s great to catch some familiar references to the Volstead Act and to imagine The Shadow existing somehow in the same romantic fantasy timeline. 

Wilfredo Torres’ art is clean and fits the era, fans of Chris Samnee’s work on Daredevil and Spider-Man will enjoy the artwork.

Overall a very fun pulp origin that I’d like to ‘know’, for fear of being asked at a convention if I’m familiar with Lamont Cranston/Kent Allard. With this series under my belt, I’ll at least be able to fake it!

THE BLACK BEETLE: NO WAY OUT #2 (OF 4)
Writer / Artist / Cover: Francesco Francavilla
Publication Date: February 20, 2013
Price: $3.99
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
UPC: 7 61568 22686 7 00211

The Black Beetle is the passion project of Eisner Award winning cover artist for 2012 Francesco Francavilla. The second part of the four part series continues to follow Colt City’s costumed detective.

I was lucky enough to find a hard copy this time, in hopes of having Francesco sign it one day, as issue #1 sold out quickly from the store. A second printing of Issue #1 is due soon, with an amazing new cover.

Dark Horse sandboxes their digital comics ondigital.darkhorse.com and on an iOS app, which is not a bad thing and mostly a great business decision.

I did scratch my head prepping for this review, however because the comic is not where I had expected it to be, on Comixology with the rest of my collection.

Anyhoo. Back to another great story with killer action and noir detective work from FF. Obvious costume nods to Batman and original DC Blue Beetle set you up for what to expect here. Black Beetle as a character could fight alongside Pulp radio heroes The Shadow or The Spider in a book like Masks, but the best part is that this is a brand new book and concept birthed by a love of the genre. 

All art credit and covers are by Francovilla, the exception being the lettering done by Nate Piekos of Blambot. We’re treated to layouts rivaling J.H. Williams III, double page spreads and a limited, sensible but not restrictive, color palette. 

Black Beetle sports leather pouches and gloves, can patch himself up after a nasty fall, but not much is known of his alter ego. We have yet to see his face. We do, however get to see a beautiful steampunk helicopter jet-pack complete with air pressure valves on the chassis. Black Beetle’s car is that of an old ‘40s model, not dissimilar to Batman’s original Batmobile with cow-catcher replacing the front grill.

The nifty gadgets help Beetle escape from last issue’s cliffhanger of course as he travels to the depths of Colt City’s sewers chasing the mystery man dressed in a head to toe labyrinth costume.

The genre relies on cliffhangers, so we are left with our man collecting matchbook clues and fixing his cufflinks for a night on the town. We hope he finds what he’s looking for, but he may just find himself chatting up a dame with a victory roll.

Very highly recommended series to get in on the ground level with, and fans of the noir or serial drama will get an extra joy out of this book because of the creator’s heartfelt respect for the radio days.

BATWOMAN #17
Co-Writer / Artist / Cover: J.H. Williams III
Co-Writer: W. Haden Blackman
Colors: Dave Stewart
Letters: Todd Klein
Publication Date: February 20, 2013
Price: $2.99
Publisher: DC Comics
UPC: 76194126480601711

The red-haired Kate Kane concludes her adventure alongside the more powerful and honestly more interesting Wonder Woman in the latest issue of Batwoman.

While the rest of the Bat-Family is dealing with repercussions of the Death of the Family in last week’sBatman #17, Diana and Kate have had to face Medusa and solve the case of hundreds of missing Gotham children.

The issue introduces a new femme fatale, Hawkfire.

Hawkfire is the rejuvenated spirit of cousin Bette Kane, formerly under the mantle of Flamebird.

J.H. WIlliam’s Batwoman is a must buy book. Innovative page layouts and interesting relationships between all of the support cast make the book not only beautiful to look at but also engage the audience at a high intellectual level.

A monstrous threat, the Mother of all Monsters, looks to engulf Gotham in slime after being summoned by the ancient Medusa and the shamanistic Maro. Batwoman and Wonder Woman are assisted by Hawkfire to take out the major players. Hawkfire disarms Hook Man and sends his Scythe to the depths of the ocean. As a play on Wonder Woman’s original origin, Medusa is turned to stone to break and shattered by Batwoman’s fist.

Ceto, the Mother of all Monsters returns to a more recognizable form as Medusa’s spell is broken along with her body. Kate convinces Diana to end the cycle of ancient violence by not killing the human form of Ceto, but protecting her.

The chapter ends with Hawkfire, Batwoman and Wonder Woman saying goodbye before the Department of Extranormal Operations crashes the party and starts asking too many questions. 

If that wasn’t enough story for you, there are five pages of reveals at the end with so many repercussions, relations, and resurrections that will blow your mind. Just when you thought this book was over you will be dying get at the next issue. This was the best ending for a single issue of a comic in a long time.

Fortunately for you, DC does release Batwoman in trade and if you want some of the best Bat-stories around, start at J.H. Williams III and Greg Rucka’s Elegy and get caught up from there, right into the New 52. The best part about the book is that it remains unchanged from the original DCU version, and all of her origin stays canon.

[READ MORE AT FORCES OF GEEK]

DigBoston and LeaguePodcast Comic Book Picks of the Week for December 19, 2012

COMICS

The New 52 has been hinting at reintroducing Jack Kirby’s Fourth World since Justice League #4. Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang drop the second son of Darkseid, Orion, into Wonder Woman #15 likely picking up some new readers on the Amazonian title. … Silly, superfluous and searching for a sense of purpose is Michael Kupperman’s Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 2 is available from Fantagraphics today featuring never before published materials the likes of “The Odd Couple of Draculas” and “Skull Groin”. …Batwoman #15 from the venerable J.H. Williams III guest stars Wonder Woman as the ladies return to Gotham to take down Medusa. … Picks this week from LeaguePodcast.com.

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EARTH PRIME TIME: GAIL SIMONE FIRED FROM BATGIRL

Something’s amiss in Gotham and the Bat-Family is suffering a huge loss. Sure, some of us have been dumped by text messages or have accidentally posted “I Quit” status updates on our companies’ Facebook page, thinking it was our own. We’ve never been fired for being a role model over e-mail. Last Wednesday, our holiest of comic book days,Gail Simone was fired from DC Comics. What forensic evidence is left behind from this crime against comics? Barbara Gordon as Batgirl and Oracle act as role models to both young women with able bodies and with challenged bodies. Gail stands out as one of DC’s lone female creators in an industry dominated by men. Karen Berger leaves DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint after 20 years early next year. Everyone is baffled.

The comic industry rolls on, churning out the Bat-Family and all the Spider-Man books a month that are the backbone to the thing. Sure, people get fired, creative teams change, books and whole universes get rebooted. Like, constantly. So, why all the drama and shout outs on Twitter andTumblr this week? Because Gail Simone is amazing.

Many think this decision is unfair and we were all caught by surprise. Who are we to comment on the small speck of paint on Warner’s intellectual property canvas that we were staring at? We’re comic fans, dammit. It’s kind of our thing.

We wanted to eek out at least another year of issues with Gail at the helm. She had us going rooting for bad guys with her Secret Six run (Secret Six was a pre-New 52 team book of villains starring Dark Knight Rises taskmaster Bane alongside Deadshot, our favorite Catman, Rag Doll, and more). Another team book Simone directed was Birds of Prey with Barbara Gordon as a paralyzed and empowered Oracle, Black Canary and The Huntress.

[READ MORE at DIGBOSTON.com]

EARTH PRIME TIME: INTERVIEW WITH J.H. WILLIAMS III (PART TWO)

Last week, in Part One, we revealed the cryptic mystic secrets of a metal band called The Sword and their collaboration with artist J.H. Williams III (Batwoman, Promethea, Chase) to create the artwork for Apocryphon. This week, we continue our talk with J.H. on such varied topics as Batwoman, The Sandman and about the process of writing comics for other artists to draw.

DIGBOSTON: Let’s get into this and talk about Batwoman! Issue #14 is out, with #15 hitting right before Christmas. We’re in the middle of the arc with Wonder Woman. Your run on this book in the New 52 is existing comfortably in the spot where the Morrison comics are, where they are not really affected by the change in the New 52. You’ve taken over writing from your partnership with Greg Rucka. Now you are working with W. Haden Blackman and Amy Reeder. How much can you tell us about being able to stay off in your own little world? J.H. WILLIAMS III:  I don’t know how it happened actually. In my conversations with DC, they’ve always been supportive of what I want to do, and they instinctively knew the book had to be not isolated but needed to be doing it’s own thing for a while. The stuff I did with Greg was significant, and at the same time there was still so much more to explore. Those stories were still relatively new when the New 52 shift occurred. We had already been working on Batwoman: The Series before the New 52 happened. Instead of trying to reconfigure everything, they just let us run with it.

Batwoman was so new, that to reboot the character would be nonsense.

The stuff that Greg and I did, as far as her origin, her sister the psychotic Alice, the fallout with her father…It would have been insane to throw that all away. It had to remain as canon. It seemed like a very natural thing for them to accept it. Very cool. How are you enjoying being on the writing side and giving some issues over to other artists? It’s really an interesting process, actually. In enjoy it a lot, seeing how other people interpret the scripts. What I find the most interesting on a creative process level is that when I’m writing for myself, I’m writing the same as if I write for someone else in sense of detail.

Writing for myself, it’s not as though I cut corners on my scripts. “OK, I’m in writer’s mode, I’m wearing my writer’s hat, so I’m going to write”.

Almost like, if something were to happen in the middle of writing and drawing, you’d be able to hand off the script to someone else. (Laughs) Yeah, and it’s just good practice anyway, if I’m going to pursue being a writer, I need to know what the hell I’m doing and write things fully fleshed out. The fun part for me is seeing what someone when Trevor McCarthy comes in with his interpretations of what we’re writing and run with it as well. I’m really happy to be working with him, he is an open minded artist willing to try different things and puts a lot of thought into what he is doing. It is super exciting to be writing for other people, it is not my first experience doing that, a long time ago, I had co-written a book called Chase for DC. It was short-lived, but then we did a lot of short stories based on the concept for DC Secret Files where other artists got to draw those. I also co-wrote a five part Batman story called Snow that another artist drew. I found the whole thing interesting, how another artist would interpret how I see things.

When I write, I’m very descriptive and try to convey visuals with words. Seeing how someone else would interpret how I know I would interpret the script is very fascinating.

-

 You’ve introduced a new vocabulary into page layout, and your panel shapes. I think you’ve got some imitators out there now as well. There may not be much for you to say about your process but I wanted to compliment you on our page layouts because they are really amazing, and sort of changed the game a little bit.

  Thank you, I appreciate that you feel that way. When people talk about my work in that regard, I feel like I’m cheating. In all honesty, some of the things I’m doing aren’t all that new! People like Jim Steranko and Jim Starlin to name a couple were doing this in the 60s and 70s, to name a couple who pushed the boundaries of what a page can do. I feel like all I’m really doing is trying to expand on that. I gravitated to that stuff when I saw it.

It seeped into my head and I can’t help but think in those terms now.

You could be introducing that to a whole new generation of artists that never have seen the 70s Steranko. Exactly, and to me on a personal creative level, I can’t settle on doing things the traditional expected way. Certainly there is a place for that and there are times where I do that myself, even in Batwoman when we go highly traditional. But when I’m doing it, it now has a different meaning because of the way it is being used in relation to the more wilder stuff.

If I had to draw just the way that people superficially expect comics to look, I probably would be pretty bored. That sounds like a terrible thing to say in some ways because I love comics and I read lots of comics that are very traditional. For myself, I’m compelled to just push it.

After a year of the New 52, we get a “0” Origin issue of Batwoman. The 0 Issue reveal was spectacular. With the training, it was everything you want out of a new Batman origin, except for here it is, Batwoman.

Thanks, that was a tricky issue for us to write because we knew what was going to remain canon and not canon from Greg and I’s run, that with my partner Haden, it would be a disservice to deviate from that at all. When the whole Zero issue thing came up and DC wanted an origin story it was a challenge because we felt all that ground had been covered already, and relatively recently from one of the best writers there is! It was vey tough for us to figure out how to retell that story but bring something new to it at the same time without deviating from what was there. We had to treat this as more of an expansion. What solidified the issue and what makes it stand out in comparison to what came before with Greg’s story, was for the first time, we are getting to see these events from Kate Kane’s inner point of view. We get to see her looking at that stuff in hindsight.

This brought out new emotional revelations for the character that aren’t necessarily evident from the stuff Greg and I got to work on together. I thought in that regard it was really successful.

It was great and it was Year One in 22 pages. Very cool. We all heard at San Diego Comic Con this year about the 2013 Sandman Comic with Neil Gaiman. Are you excited about the fan feedback that you’ve heard so far?

Oh yeah, people are so excited for it. I had art collectors pinging me about being on a list to get pages, before anything had even been drawn yet. httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GndnR7oSYYk A funny thing about announcing projects, is that sometimes the audience thinks that it must have been worked on already! I think the fans are really excited, and that excitement is really going to ramp up the closer we get to it actually coming out, especially when we are able to show people what we are going to do. I can’t wait to do it.

Honestly, I can’t wait to see it either! It is going to be so amazing.

We have to know, though, what is your preferred format for The Sword Apocryphon? Are you going to get the cassette version as well? Yeah, I have the cassette version, that was part of the deal I made with them — they had to send me a copy of everything they do! For one, I want to have a copy for my own personal archives, and also I want to physically s ee it so I can go, “Ooh, look at this, isn’t that cool”! But I have to say, I’m stoked with all the different vinyl versions that are coming out, that are amazing. I just heard from Napalm Records, the label responsible for some of the overseas stuff are going back to print on some of the vinyl with even more variations.

Something about seeing it in vinyl is so much more powerful to me on a visual level than the CD version. It is just really cool.

It is an amazing record with amazing artwork, it has been a pleasure to talk to you, J.H.! Part One of this interview can be found here: EARTH PRIME TIME: INTERVIEW WITH J.H. WILLIAMS III (PART ONE).

[READ MORE at DIGBOSTON.COM]

[Quoted on ROBOT 6] 

EARTH PRIME TIME: INTERVIEW WITH J.H. WILLIAMS III (PART ONE)

When we can open our eyes and see the connections between people, places, and things as more than just coincidence, but rather as a web stretching across the universe and back home to Earth, great discoveries happen on a spiritual level. Metal band The Sword thinks about these ethereal associations and tapped modern comic book maestro J.H. Williams III (Batwoman, Promethea, Chase) to create the artwork for Apocryphon. Following a sold out show at The Middle East Downstairs last week, we talked to the artist about his craft and the collaboration that brought the band back to Earth after spending some time in outer space.

  DIGBOSTON: Thanks for taking the time with us, J.H.! Can you let us know what kind of direction you were given by the band for the artwork? We’ve been listening to Apocryphon by The Sword non-stop since their show last week.

J.H. WILLIAMS III: It was kind of an organic process. Ultimately it was born of having conversations with the singer John [D. Cronise]. For something like this to be really successful from my point of view, as someone who is creating visuals for someone else’s artistic endeavors, I feel like I need to get inside their head a little bit. We started talking about what the new music sounds like and they had sent me over some demos. We started talking about what some of the lyrical content was going to be like and what the overall feeling of the album would be. When he told me the meaning of the title, that word means secret writing. This led into a whole esoteric conversation about mysticism, a little bit about the occult, and more esoteric ideas. As we would talk, different things would come into my head, and I would sketch or think about some ideas and send those things over.

The biggest thing we were wanting to convey was a lot of symbolic imagery without it typically being just symbols. We ended up using some rune-like symbols, and overall the rest of the imagery needed to feel symbolic of different things. Some were purposeful, others were random and organic, more metaphoric in a sense.

That definitely fits into what I know of your art in the comics. You can get into some abstract symbols and symbolism. I was thinking about the runes and I meant to ask because everyone goes back to the Led Zeppelin IV — where everybody ‘has their own symbol.’ I feel like what the band was trying to do with the record and the overall look of your awesome artwork was that there are symbols people can relate to, but don’t exactly know why. I also know from their website that John did a lot of research on his own to get inspired for this new record. It is a great fit.

I think so, too; one of the things I was trying to convey visually was that with their previous albums, there is a great sense of story to their stuff. I wanted to keep that going, so that when you look at the artwork there is a great sense of story to it. A lot of it is more metaphoric, symbolic images that represent other things. The sense of story comes out through the use of those images.

The idea of the runes is like creating a sense of story that has mystery to it.

You aren’t going to get necessarily all of the answers concretely, or some of the stuff might make you feel something in particular, or make you think of something subliminally so that it becomes more interpretational.

When you are listening to the record and letting the art wash over you, you are filling in the gaps with your imagination, like in between pages or panels in a comic book, in a way.

Yeah, exactly. The only thing I was really concrete about wanting to convey was that the previous album, Warp Riders, was a far out, space, sci-fi fantasy epic thing. This record, the first thing that came to my mind when John was talking to me was that even though the lyrics are metaphorical, this is a much more personal record for him than Warp Riders was. When you look at the first image, I wanted you to have a sense of the cosmic-ness at the top, but [also the sense that] you are returning to a planetary body. In doing so, we wanted to show that a planetary body at first seems like a dead-looking planet. But there is a piece carved out, where there is still fire inside of it.

So the band is returning to a personal place to rebirth this fuel inside themselves, therefore re-birthing vitality in a way.

 The whole symbol of the planet being dead there, and then you turn the cover over to the back and you see life growing from death. This becomes rich, and has almost a summer kind of feel to it or a spring kind of feel. At the bottom you can see the skulls and the sunflowers rising up from that. To me that was symbolizing the idea of being out in space and returning to someplace deeper and personal.

I see the contrast of reaching out to a big fantasy world of spaceships and sci-fi mysteries out there with the mysteries grounded by bringing it back to the Earth on a personal level best illustrated by your image of a sword cracking though the crust of the Earth on the back of the jewel case.

By returning to Earth and getting more personal, you are invigorating new life, and seeing things from a different point of view than you were before. That’s why we used the diagram aspect of the sword penetrating the planet. We wanted to follow through with another diagram of the human cell. That round shape of the human cell correlates to the round shape of the planet.

The planet itself is a symbol of life in a way, and the basic biology of small cell life builds up us, just as the planets build up the cosmos.

What I think is great about this is that other bands might be trying to go for this type of thing, but this is a whole package. A lot of thought and care went into this. And it is not just that they hired an illustrator to draw something cool for the record cover.

I was super stoked to do it, I was a huge fan of the band prior to getting to know them a little bit. At the same time, I was trepidatious because John was telling me he was a huge fan of my work. The first thing I thought of was “Please don’t tell me you want something that looks like Batwoman on the cover”. (Laughs) John said such a nice thing, that they were coming to you because of what they saw in my comics work. My comics work hits them at such a level that they trusted me to do whatever I wanted as far as visuals I could bring to the table as far as open and far reaching.

I think it’s also very cool that you guys are super big fans of each other! That’s the best.

Ha ha, yeah, they’re a killer band! Coming back to the runes, and the idea of secret writing having to do with metaphysics, there is a metaphysical bent to some of John’s lyrics and the name of the album, Apocryphon, when I did my research on what that word meant, I found two things. One was secret writings, two was about how things were very personal.

Even though they are conveying music to an audience, personal can also mean very personal secrets or privacy.

I was thinking about this thing called the alphabet of desire. This is a ritualistic technique developed by occultist Austin Osman Spare. You think of something you desire to have in your life, a personal mantra about how you want to live or something you need to accomplish in your life. You write down a sentence on what that is, and you take the first letter of each word and create a sigil from that. Then you would meditate on the idea. There are a couple of different interpretations. In one, you would burn the original sentence, or you would burn the sigil for yourself. No one else knows what this means. This becomes highly personal. When I explained this to John, he loved that idea. Since he loved it, I insisted his band to do it, and just tell me the letters and I would design sigils for the band. By just telling me the letters, that retains the power of the secret message. We created those, and I thought it would be interesting to make runes out of the titles of the songs as well.

For that, did you reach for comic book letterer Todd Klein’s assistance?

No, I designed all the runes and the book myself, where Todd comes in, was figuring out some of the technical aspects. We were under the gun to get this done in time and I couldn’t do all the lettering myself. So I went to the best guy there is! He designed all the text lettering for the credits and the song lyrics. Another cool element that was very concrete in the artwork was the use of the winged serpent, an interpretation of Quetzalcoatl. Here the band was returning to a personal place in the year 2012, looking for renewal and change.

Everyone is talking about how the world and society needs to renew and change as well. The Mayan 2012 stuff is a bunch of junk, but it got me thinking about the real meaning of apocalypse isn’t destruction, it is change from what we know.

Musicians constantly need to be reinventing themselves, selling records, but also bands don’t want to be stuck in the same place. Some bands get ethereally abstract about that, but Kyle (Shutt, guitar) was saying “We’re Not Making a Conscious Decision To Do Anything But Be Awesome”. The sound on this record is not a huge departure but it is more grounded as you said, so thank you for sharing this with us!

It was super exciting to do, and it seems like we enjoyed the collaboration enough that I’m hoping that we will be able to do more things in the future. I’ve expressed interest to them that I’d be game to be involved in other releases or however else they would like to join forces.

J.H. was awesome enough to let me keep him on the phone to talk about Batwoman, The New 52, his upcoming Sandman book with Neil Gaiman. Stay tuned for Part Two of our interview next week! EDIT: Here it is!

[READ MORE AT DIGBOSTON.COM]