Joe Golem Occult Detective vol 3: The Drowning City

Oh yes, it's finally here, the comic adaptation of one of my favourite novels of the last few years! Aaaaaand ....they only adapted the first half of the story.

God. I don't know why I'm still being taken in by anything with Mignola's name on the cover. I mean really?

     So apparently the novel Joe Golem and the Drowning City is being adapted in two parts, part one named Joe Golem Occult Detective the Drowning City 1-5 only adapts the book's first half, while the other part Joe Golem Occult Detective The Conjurors 1-5 will adapt the rest of the novel, possibly going a bit further into uncharted territory. The Conjurors is actually already out, the story over and done with, except it's not out yet in trade or hardback, which means I would have to track down either e-book versions or individual comics, which is not something I do.
And how long do I still have to wait to have the full thing on my shelf?

5 months. *sighs deeply*.

     Ah well, it's not as if I had a bad time so far, and to be fair, in the long run, having the story spread out over two volumes instead of one, gives it way more time to breathe, allowing them to linger on the crucial or emotional moments, and letting them spend time on the original story's tone rather than just getting it over with to explore the uncharted Joe Golem stuff.

     I was struck that they were already doing a very good job of this as the Drowning City 5 came to its end, when the action started to slow down and the writers let the realization slowly filter in, that this was it, that here it would end, that somehow our heroes had failed, and to the beat of repeating narration, the art slowly ramped its way up to revelation. It reminded me of the brilliant ending to Baltimore: The Infernal Train where the narration almost became a mantra, accompanying some truly awesome over-the-top art: a foreign language, incomprehensible, repeated over and over, as blood splashed the page and limbs flew, and then at the end, the final page and the final revelation revealed together with the English translation.

     Even though they'd done it better in Baltimore (mostly because of the amount of gore and blood, and the gothic trappings) I could really very much appreciate it here.

     Peter Bergting's art is a good fit for Joe Golem, treading the line between realistic and cartoony in a way that I didn't like in Baltimore, but here feels just right, adding a sense of nastiness to the supernatural horror, making the danger real and somehow jagged.

I'm still not too fond of some of his stylistic choices, but you can't deny that the man is a dab hand at faces at this point.

So, even though I was disappointed that the story was incomplete, the future will eventually see that remedied, and hopefully The Conjurors will close out the novel adaptation in a fitting manner.

If you're interested, maybe hold off until you can buy both volumes at once, or dig into volumes 1 and 2 which are also pretty good. Or failing that, Baltimore volumes 1-5, which are also set in the same universe as Joe Golem, are always a good thing to pick up, even if the series goes to hell after that. The whole priest storyline alone is worth picking these up. A masterclass in gothic horror comics and a pretty much traditional read for the Halloween month at this point.

Crimson Lotus

   

The Crimson Lotus comic was a dud in pretty much every way except in the art department. The art is phenomenal, but that's pretty much all the good I have to say about this one.

     The writing, though relatively good in micro, absolutely sucked in macro. I enjoyed the characters, the two spies and their banter in particular, but the story didn't go anywhere. Though we start out with a revenge plot it peters out almost immediately after the first issue, leaving its plot threads dangling in the wind. Then, it seems as if it wasn't a revenge plot at all, but rather a sort of relic hunt with some serendipitous vengeance thrown in. We're kept in the dark pretty much every step of the way and pretty much nothing gets explained. The climactic battle is resolved with a deus ex machina, and with a completely unsatisfying open ending that can't do anything but adhere to the status quo.

     One of the problems of the Mignola-verse comics is that after a while not a single one of them can be enjoyed on their own, without prior knowledge.

     To make it worse, the writers have come to take it for granted that the reader is completely aware of what their big revelatory scenes mean, as if everyone who reads these stories has a lore bible in their heads that can be accessed whenever necessary, as if catering to the die-hard fans is what'll sell these stories. Stupidly enough I know I am one of those people. I have read all of the Mignola verse trades, except for Ragna Rok, and that is winging its way to me right now. I know it'll be disappointing, I know I'll think it'll be rushed and not well written, that it's just going to cement my opinion that the Mignola universe stories just thrive on brand appeal rather than actual quality story-telling. I hear you ask: But why, if you loathe this universe so much, are you still collecting and reading it, why have you gotten this far at all, Levi?
BECAUSE I'M A CONSUMERIST WORM, I guess. But let me rant a little more, please. There'll be spoilers for the Crimson Lotus comic next.

     Every supposedly standalone comic in the Mignola-universe, spin-off or "origin story" has these panels where all of a sudden the laws of known reality are upturned. In Crimson Lotus, what was a relatively straightforward spy/occult magic thriller all of a sudden becomes something with practical superhero-powers and demons: Vril makes an appearance and anyone not in the know will be scratching their heads because why is this Chinese lady shooting fucking lightning out of her hands all of sudden? As someone who Loves, Loves capital L mind you, Lobster Johnson I was surprised to see the Lotus using Vril. What is going on, could she do that when she met the Lobster? Have I forgotten this? Nothing is explained here, damnit!
     The climax of the story has, completely out of the blue, the little Russian-doll-girl/demon show up and deus ex machina the story to completion and I'm just wondering if anyone still cares about crafting a story that can actually be satisfying all on its own.

     The Mignola-verse has just gotten too unwieldy to get away with these types of spin-offs. Sure, given where the series actually ended up, they don't really have a choice other than to go back into the past to flesh out some of the side-characters' stories, those that'll appeal to the buying masses, but if you're doing that you should at least make it stand on its own. Give us enough information within the comic itself, seed hints and clues throughout so that when something happens we can slap our heads and shout AHA, THAT IS SATISFYING rather than just sinking deeper and deeper into a well of despondent acceptance sad and angry that this is considered "a comic to pick up".

     Good art though, it must be said. There are some genuinely awesome, and genuinely brutal, panels in here. Mindy Lee is a damn fine accomplished artist.
     John Arcudi on the other hand... I love Lobster Johnson, I love Sledgehammer 44. But this, Abe Sapien and the mainline BPRD stuff has just been monumentally badly paced, and have all left me unsatisfied.
 

August Book Haul

This month's influx of books consists mainly of comics. At this point I've got so many series to keep up with that I need lists to do so, and that when I occasionally check them I find that there's a whole bunch to catch up on. It's not all comics though: There are also a few regular books I'd been wanting to add to my shelves.

First of those, which has been on my wishlist for just about forever, is Steven Brust's To Reign in Hell, which takes its cues from Paradise Lost's opening chapters to write the tale of Lucifer's rebellion in heaven.

I'm curious to see how Brust approaches the tale. He's mostly known for the Vlad Taltos series, a high fantasy/ science fiction mash-up. I've never been much interested in them but apparently Brust experiments with narrative style a lot, which is something that tends to be interesting but detracts from an easy reading experience. He jumps around from book to book, and as the series currently has like 15 books out about now I could see that being rather irritating. As To Reign in Hell is rather short and stand-alone to boot, I don't think this one will suffer from those issues.

Next is the latest Vastarien issue, 2.2, the summer 2019 edition, this time with colour artwork.

I don't know though, I don't really pick these up for the artwork, though I guess it does add something. Haven't begun reading yet, but I'll do so soon. These days are dark, and if the previous issues are anything to go buy, I'll find what I need in here.

The issues themselves, though still of stellar quality, have gone down a bit in page count, which is a bit sad. I'm uncertain if the magazine will survive much longer.

I hope it will, but there's only so much nihilistic fiction the average reader is willing to put up with, so I can't see Vastarien lasting indefinitely.

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Next up are two videogame tie-in comics.

The Flesh and Flame one is alright, although the writing quality is certainly less than the previous Witcher comics, but it's still an acceptable story, easy fare and easily digestible art.

 If you want a really good Witcher comic though, you'd best pick up either comic 1,2 or 3. Fox children, number 2, in particular was very good, even though a lot of it was re-purposed from the Season of Storms novel. I found it a lot better than its prose counterpart though. Season of Storms kind of just felt like a whole bunch of short stories thrown together. Which again reaffirms my opinion that Sapkowski might have some damn good ideas, but that he just unremittingly sucks at long-form fiction.

The previous Bloodborne comic was really good so even though I haven't yet read this one I'm sure it'll be satisfying. The Bloodborne comics really manage to capture the dark melancholy mood of the video game quite well. Recommend you pick those up. Especially if you like werewolves and the gothic genre. It isn't exactly that but it's pretty close to it, and I don't think there's anything like it out there. Just like the video game it's minimalist in its storytelling but lush in its art.

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The Mignola section.

I confess I have come to almost dislike Mignola's comics, because whenever he tends to have an idea or when an interesting character makes their appearance, even if it's in the middle of an ongoing story, he tends to just hand it over to someone else in order to make it stand alone. This detracts hugely from the comic of which they're spun off from. The BPRD series just became plain awful after a while. Escpecially with that Ragna Rok ending, which if you want that to make sense you better be willing to explore the side-paths.

Don't get me wrong. Individually the different series are pretty good, but all together they're a bit of a mess.

Some people love this though, this type of interconnected universe thing.

But in my opinion it is the very worst type of storytelling, especially in a monthly medium.

I'm absolutely not a fan, as I find them unwieldy, inelegant and just a damn pain to keep up with. It also doesn't help that when all of these different characters come together it can't help but become a different beast than when you're reading them alone. I have more problems with it, but as I'm just kind of hung up on the Mignola-verse here I'm going to let it go.

(And despite Mignola's protestations about how faithful the recent Hellboy movie was to the source material, and his exclamations about how much he liked it more than the Guillermo Del Toro movies, the general audience tends to agree with me; a bloated, incoherent mess. It might be cool, and awesome, but it's just not fun to watch it because you can barely keep up with it.)

Sorry about that, sometimes it just spills out of me.

Crimson Lotus is tied into the Helboy universe via the Lobster Johnson series, where she is a one-off villain who stands alongside the Black Flame to wreck the Lobster's day. That is honestly a very good story in what is without a doubt my favourite Hellboy property, but I could have done without this spin-off. That being said, The Crimson Lotus could be very good.

Joe Golem: The Drowing City, then, is the long-awaited adaptation of the Drowning City novel by Mignola and Christopher Golden. That novel was one of my favourite books that I read... the year before last, I think. This comic is the third in the Joe Golem comic series, and they've been pretty good, fleshing out Joe's past (a bit) and giving the reader some cool flashes of some truly fucked-up witches.

The series takes place in the same universe as Baltimore, and I'm hoping that when it continues past the Drowning City it won't crash and burn like Baltimore did. But the record doesn't give much hope for it.That's just my cynicism talking, but in my opinion the ending to the Baltimore saga ended up being a colossal failure.

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Nothing bad to say about these beauties though.

The best Ongoing Sci-fi comics of the day.

Seven to Eternity is Rick Remender's writing at his best, and the artwork is still fucking stellar.

Saga on the other hand, I haven't read yet since volume 5 or so, but I think that now would be a good time to catch up with it. Once upon a time dubbed "Star Wars for Perverts" it has long since started to outshine the luster of its by now quite tarnished forebear. I'm just hoping it'll still take a while before this piece of perfection is stripped apart by Hollywood.

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My Occult Vertigo shelves are starting to strain the more I try to make my collection complete.

Vertigo is still continuing its re-release of the Hellblazer series in their handsome trade paperbacks.

 We're up to 21 now, and I'm guessing we're going to hit 26 by the end. It's a bit of a shitty number to end on, but at least the story arcs are still damn good.

Volume 20 was a very impressive collection of stories, all of impeccable quality, and I'm hoping this one will continue that trend. The Laughing Magician story line has been hyped up, at least. It's a bit sad to think that soon I'll have read all of Hellblazer. 

And, with that in mind, I've begun to look at the series and characters that also play around in Constantine's sandbox. I had already read the Sandman saga, but I bizarrely never picked up Death's stand-alone stories.

This was swiftly remedied though, and though it comes across as a bit throw-away to me, I did find it enjoyable to read. I've never been too enamoured with the Death Endless character but I don't hate her either. She's just a bit too much of a manic Pixie dream-girl for me I guess. One of Gaiman's idiosyncrasies and I've never like the man or his writings too much. He's got skill and fascinating ideas, but for some reason, he just rubs me the wrong way. I'm guessing that the Ink-Stained Beard and his unabashed love for all thing Gaiman might have something to do with it. Damn you Beard!

Anyway, it was an okay comic, a little bit empty, but I do confess to laughing out loud at a certain part.

Death talks about Life is a piece written during the whole 'Aids-scare' in the eighties, and though I did find it a bit eye-rolling to read at first, I actually appreciated it at the end.

I'm re-reading Lucifer right now, because I never actually got around to reading the last volume, and Death is slated to make an appearance soon. 

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Next one is Gideon Falls, of which I still haven't read the first Trade Paperback but of which I thought I best purchase the next copy anyway.

Murders and cosmic horror, what's not to like?

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And then there is this one... hmmm, seems to be something wrong with the quality of the picture...

Strange, cant' seem to change its colouring...

Hmmm... ah well...

Here it is, the cloth hardback edition of Simon's Necronomicon!

I've read it now, and eh... I'm obviously not the target audience for this one. I don't believe in magic, really, but there's people who do, and who make claims, and who look on this book and the contents herein and who state that it has value, but... eh, I think if magic is real then it doesn't need to be so needlessly obtuse, and this one was written to be so.

Of course, the book also states that it is not for beginners, but that shouldn't really matter, right? Some things should be made clear. My main problem with the book is that it didn't distinguish enough between its actual information and its myth-building (and with that last I mean that the book pretends to sometimes be other than what it is. For instance the Author's name just being presented as Simon, which is just a way to make the work mysterious and appealing.) The Sumerian background was interesting but it was here that that myth-building problem comes into being. How much of this can you trust to be fact? Of these things, what can you build on?

Anyway, I just bought it for curiosity's sake so I don't need to write an essay on the damn thing.

There's sites out there that dissect the book and can give you background and explanations on the minutiae to be found herein. 

Warlock Asylum International News is perfect for this.

Alright, that's all from me.

I do apologize for the serious lack of content these days. Stuff happens sometimes, and then that leads to a lot of stuff not happening, if you catch my drift.

March Book Haul

Tum tum tum tuuuum.

Another month, another bunch of books. In this particular pile you'll find some Warhammer, some new releases and some comics.

We'll start with the smallest book first; quite an old novel, and a personal favourite of mine.

I had already read The King Beyond the Gate; in fact it was one of the first 'darker' fantasy novels I had read, after having first read a bunch of Eddings and Redwall. This one cemented my love for the grim side of  fantasy. I got my original copy from my grandmother, and I thought it was about time I finished my Del Rey Drenai collection.

Of these, the only one I haven't read yet is The Swords of Night and Day. I keep holding off on that one, because once it's done, there will no more new Drenai to read. Maybe this year somewhere.

You'll notice that the Knights of Dark Renown and Morningstar are in here too. 'Officially' they're not part of the Drenai Saga but I put them in the whole anyway. This is because I once came upon an observation by somebody on the internet that, there is a reference to places from Morningstar in the Waylander trilogy, to my mind then, cementing the initial two books as part of the whole saga.

Here you'll see the Warhammer novels I got.

Gods and Mortals is a hardback short story collection which I won't read any time soon, but as these things tend to go out of stock pretty quickly I thought it would be good to have it on hand for whenever I felt like it.

City of the Damned is a reprint of a stand-alone Gotrek and Felix novel I didn't yet have.

I must say though, I'm slightly annoyed that the gold reflective theme from the dark omnibus editions wasn't carried through.

Up next, the fifth volume of the Night Shade's Jules de Grandin complete short story collections... which you can see here already gathered with the rest of them.

Though I haven't ever even read any Seabury Quinn, I did pick these up, because of the artwork, because I tend to want to support Night Shade Books, and because of the occult leanings of the Jules de Grandin stories. Also, I seem to have discovered that I like pulp stories of the weird and horror variety, more than I thought I did, and since I'm done reading Lovecraft now I am glad to already have something on the go.

I've had some difficulties with reading lately and I've found over the past few months that reading short stories helps with counteracting some of that. The introduction says these stories aren't of such high-standing quality that they can just be plowed through until completion, and that they might start to blur together after a while. So, on its recommendation, I'll start to intersperse these into my reading now and then over a long period of time, rather than trying to force the read.

Up next is book 2 in Anna Smith Spark's Empires of Dust trilogy.

As you can see, I'm reading it now, so I won't be saying much about this one right now.

The books without their dust jackets.

I did appreciate The Court of Broken Knives when I read it and I posted a very long review on it. I went off on a slightly off-putting tangent during the writing, so I'm not too fond of sharing the review itself. It's still there though, so if you want to read it, go and read it your own self; it's still on the blog somewhere. 

lovely cover art by the way.

The limited edition of Angron: Slave of Nuceira.

The Black Library again on form with their special editions.

The book comes in a thick sleeve (War Hounds embossing), which is why the book is actually quite a bit thinner than you'd think, and the book on the whole is only about 200 pages, and I've already read it too. I'll hold off on showing you more, as I've already prepared next post to showcase and talk about the book a little.

Three Horror comics, two of which I've read and can really recommend.

I haven't read Infinite Dark yet, but Space-horror is right up my alley so I picked this one up as soon as I knew it existed. I'm not sure when I'll get round to it, as I tend to wait a while until these types of series conclude.

Bprd: Vampire follows agent-turned-vampire Simon Anders after his experiences in Bprd: 1948 and is one of those side-jaunts in the Hellboy universe that is probably better than some of the stuff it is a side-jaunt of. This is a re-issue that adds a little extra to the original material, and sets up the second volume of the as of yet unwritten Bprd: Vampire trilogy. I do hope this gets continued soon, because it really is quite stellar.

Bloodborne then, the Death of Sleep is one of those gaming comics designed to pilfer a few bucks, or euros, from those fans that just couldn't get enough from just its source material alone, and which generally are not all that great.

Imagine my surprise then, when I found that this one is actually really, really good.

There's a story here, but as in the game, it's rather hidden, and I'm unsure if it was concluded or if it's still an ongoing project. The comic has a lot of mood going for it, relying on empty vistas and bleak imagery to tell its story, rather than relying on dialogue or exposition.

You obviously should be familiar with the source material to make some sense of it though.

It even managed to get some chilling moments in there, I kid you not.

I won't be spoiling those for you though, and instead I recommend, if you're a fan, that you pick this one up yourself.

And, lastly, the comic that I'm giving a read right now.

Caballistics Inc is one of those favourites that manages to hit all the right spots, and I'm finding a lot to enjoy on this re-read. The introduction that comes with this edition is a little startling however. It gives yet another one of those glimpses of discontent between the writing and art teams of 2000ad and their higher-ups. The introduction, written in the pub, isn't all that great and instead serves us up with yet another one of those 'oh-what-could-have-been' moments, but regardless of it now having made sure I'll never actually buy the spin-off novels, I'm glad that this edition at least, has Gordon Rennie's approval.

What's crazy though is that there even seems to be another arc here that I've never even read:

I'm sure that this is the first I've ever come across 'Visiting Hour'.

Which is slightly odd, because when I read the trade paperback editions I found that  Volume 2: Creepshow didn't actually have The Nativity story or even To Ashes in it, and I found myself compelled to buy the digital edition of the complete Caballistics Inc last year or so. And I'm sure Visiting Hour wasn't in there back then. Ah well, at least I've got something extra to look forward to now.

Here's the whole Caballistics inc universe, which besides the titular series, also consists of the Harry Absalom series, which is at least as good as its progenitor.

Also, by the way, Absalom seems to be about to conclude in the near future.

And I must admit, I'm quite looking forward to see what'll happen here. Some reference to Caballistics would be nice.

Consequences

From Conan: The Blood-Stained Crown and other short stories.

Now, in the tale this line is used as a way to incentivize taking a course of action, because the action in question, the action to be taken, is the right one to take, and furthermore; to commit to taking it in spite of the possible negative consequences.

But it can of course also be read in another way:
If you embark on a course of action, the consequences might indeed turn out to be damned. And in that case, you will be forced to deal with whatever comes your way.

Lessons From The Goon: Life's Gauge

Here's a bit I've been wanting to share since I first read it.

From The Goon: Once Upon A Hard Time.

Do yourself a favour and go read the Goon.

It's a beautifully drawn comic that has made me laugh out loud more times than I remember (though that was mostly in the first omnibus) and, at times, it had me in tears as well (see omnibi three to five). There's not a lot of comics that can do that, off the top of my head I can think of Saga having gotten the same response out of me, but overall this one's nothing like Stars Wars for perverts (guilty!).

This is comedy-horror, with a little bit of everything thrown in.

 The Goon is outrageous, it's funny and silly, but it goes to some really dark places too. Tonally, it starts out in a very different place than where it ends. It's got a very satisfying overarching narrative with a good conclusion, which will nonetheless be continued on from in some way, shape or form later this year. What that means I'm not sure but I do trust Eric Powell to deliver the goods.

Bring on The Lords of Misery!