Review: Fear Agent (entire run)

I just finished Fear Agent's final arc 'Out of Step'.
I've not read the one-shots collected at the back of Library edition volume 2 and I guess I won't be reading them immediately either. No matter how good they each individually might be, they would only diminish the feeling that Out of Step and the ending to the entire Fear Agent series gave me.

Simply put; it was fantastic.

One Hell of a Ride

A well thought-out, at times completely insane, hard-to-follow plot, complete with alien invasions, time-travel and Mark Twain quotes (who's way more nihilistic than I knew), a story that went and introduced twists and plot progressions that I consistently never anticipated (bar one and that one significant, but it's all about the execution baby), that kept me satisfied and entertained with every page and regularly shocked me with its depictions of over-the-top brutal space weaponry induced violence.

The Last Goodbye;
 an apocalyptic storyline that can stand
alongside any end of the world story you've ever seen.

Main character Heath is both relatable and utterly not so. He is the man you wish you could be. A man capable of anything but also so tortured and guilt-ridden that you find it's best just to observe him going about his business and just be happy that you're not in his shoes. It really isn't fair how much he goes through during the course of this series.

Alcohol dependent and frequent drug induced episodes and yet...
what a bad-ass.

I mentioned Mark Twain before, aka Samuel Clemens, whose more nihilistic ramblings infuse this entire body of work. His quotes always accompany Heath's greatest moments of pay-off or loss.

I found them right up my alley. Nihislim, but from a very human perspective.

Above I mentioned I saw a plot progression coming and the truth is that I originally got an inkling about how this all would end at the end of the second Fear Agent arc.
At first, starting this post, I was going to go in depth about that ending but as everything I could say would constitute a damn spoiler for a tale that really shouldn't be spoiled, I will leave it out and just say that I also love the ending to David Gemmell's Waylander trilogy. Take that any way you like.

The Art, especially in volume 2 is pretty damn good and easy to look at and is kept as close to maximum consistency throughout the entire series. Meaning what you see when you begin is what you'll be getting at the end. The art does noticably get a little finer past volume 1 but I guess what I'm saying is that there aren't any radical shifts in art direction as there usually are in some comics. It's something that bums me out, so I was glad here for the consistency.

So, 32 issues with over 700 pages of  damn good-looking art and clever storytelling.
If you like space comics with an epic, reality-bending storyline, you've already picked this up. If you haven't, go on and give it a chance; it's absolutely worth it.

Run-up to Something Wicked This Way Comes(Or how the ending can just ruin your reading experience despite the enjoyable road to get there, or maybe not.)

I just finished Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes.

What an utterly silly ending.

And that silliness, the juvenile antics, the desperate laughter against the coming dark, is, of course, the point. "...We can't take them seriously...".

But when a scene doesn't connect with the reader that scene can only come off as bad. Badly and deeply silly. foolish and corny and ill-advised. There's a complete disconnect between the emotional investment in the various understandable and quite likeable characters, the various chapters of really well paced build-up of tension (which is a really hard thing to get right and yet there were several memorable tense scenes throughout the book). But then suddenly at the resolution its hoped for catharsis is then made a mockery of.

I feel let down.

By the end we're meant to laugh or cry in joy, in relief at the passing of danger and the end to mounting tension.
A heartbreaking moment in which we and the characters choose to give over to joy rather than fear. A hopeful message and a good one too. Like many lessons in the book, it is one to live your life by. The problem is that they, in what is a fraught and hopeless moment, the characters, deliberately make the choice to become happy in order to change the ending.

In a desperate and dark situation you can not just choose to be happy. To genuinely laugh, joyfully, in the face of your own despair is almost ludicrous, to laugh in such a situation is to tempt madness. And I'm not talking about wry laughter in recognition of some irony.. I'm talking about genuine Happy Joy, in full knowledge that that joy will change the outcome of whatever happens next. Knowing that without your positivity you get a bad ending. We're treading close to a paradox here. Belief as a tool powerful only in proportion to the power of your believing. And you, a rational being, knowing it.

But there's more.
At that point, in that scene, the writing is just as strained as the decision of the characters to be joyful.

Bradbury's writing and in particular his dialogue, already overly crafted, gets to be even more so. Dialogue in general is a hard thing to get right, but he seems to go an extra mile here; stunted sentences induced by despair and near-panic, juvenile expository exclamations. accompanied to the singing of several corny songs.

For other people this might very well be perfect. It just didn't connect how it should have with me.

And yet, it was close.
I know it was. I could almost feel it.


So this ending at first glance seemed like it just ruined my good reading experience up until this point.
But then, maybe I found something else in this scene.

The scene isn't genuinely touching, it isn't happy, it doesn't easily give rise to joy. And maybe it's not supposed to.

Just like the characters, we actually have to work for it. Deliberately create that emotional response. You have to strain for it to achieve it, strain to accept it. And then like our heroes, suddenly you deserve the happy ending.

In the end,
maybe that is the genius of this scene.

A perfect parallell of intent between reader and characters.



Or maybe I'm just emotionally dead.

Saviour of Mice

Would you believe I had an encounter with another mouse recently?

Literally crawling for warmth.

I went outside in the morning to clean my shoes and saw something splashing around in the pool.

There were a few moments where my first thoughts were literally 'Do spiders get that big?', 'No they don't get that big', 'Yes, they do, but that doesn't look like any spider I've seen' and then my thoughts went to the house mouse I put outside last week.

Luckily it wasn't him, he remains at large, whereabouts unknown. This was another one; a shrew.

And though it wasn't exactly a taming, and didn't even involve marriage of any kind, it was definitely a saving. (I'm so sorry)

Poor bugger must've fell in not long before. He spent about 5 minutes just literally shaking in my hands from cold, shock and exhaustion, before giving one loud squeek and practically spasming out of my hand onto the ground. Because I was sitting down and staying as still as possible it was okay though.

After that he became quite docile and only ambled off a little while later when I got up to deny him his hiding space beneath my legs.

He ended up crawling back, quite relaxed, beneath the boardwalk.

I can tell you that that felt good.

Like how a benevolent god must feel, just reaching out and helping a creature in need. A good day.

Books of Babel Haul

Look at these beauties!

All three books, both trades and hardcover have been given a matte non-reflective finish (And why the hell would anyone want otherwise is beyond me, matte non-reflective should be standard!).

Artwork and cover design by Ian Leino.

Some horror comics at the back. Don't mind them, they're not related to this.

Spines.

Note the odd, slightly out of synch spine of the hardcover.
As it is easily fixed by bending the dustjacket in a few places I'm not too horrified by it but I will
 leave it as is in case I should mess it up.

Back of the Trades. I kept Book 2's back blurb out of it in case of spoilers.

Sleeveless hardcover, uniform grey front and back.

Very nice spine limited to title and author's last name. Ideal and cheap for the self-publisher and the minimalist approach really adds a touch of class.

And here is the back of the hardcover.

You'll note there's no book blurb and only review quotes.

And as a bonus the Hardcover has a map, of sorts, that isn't present in the trades.

This acquisition and the ensuing blog post is mostly because of Mark Lawrence, known for his Prince of Thorns trilogy, whose Self Published Fantasy Blog Off project moved these books into the spotlight.

They've been getting alot of hype and exposure these days, again because of the SPFBO, and though I'm a little late for the party, I thought it'd be nice for potential buyers to see how the books looked on display and in the flesh (paper) as it were.

I haven't really got time to read them but as they're so pretty, I don't really care.

For now I'll just wait until the sequels are out and read them as the set is complete.

The Books of Babel will run up to 4 books. Josiah Bancroft is now working on book 3, tentatively titled The Hod King.

Brutania Chronicles Haul

Alright, a break from the dark stuff.

Look at what finally arrived!

The final Part of the Brutania Chonicles.

So far, the best storyline and, in my opinion, best artwork of the entirety of the Slaine canon.

Have a look at its opening pages.

And if this looks batshit insane to you...
Well, you're not wrong.

Predominately violent, bloody red and blazing yellow (which is literally power Blazing Forth from the mouth of the Primordial) against a backdrop of varying shades of dark and moody blue. Some very impressive work by artist Simon Davis. And that yellow bit from page 2 seems to signify that more flashbacks are incoming.

So far, in the series' long history as an art comic, I haven't liked anything as much I like Simon Davis' run. Not even Bisley's Horned God.
Though Brutania might still be not as good as Bisley's part of the Book of Scars. Small though as that was, it was perfect, and possibly only perfect because it was so small. It was in effect the climax of the 'Horned God' storyline compressed into a small part of  'Scars' and updated, revamped and showered with an artist's patience and love.

Yeah, I love Bisley's part in Slaine's Book of Scars. Who doesn't? Look at it.

Mind-numbing Bad-Assery undercut by the silly antics of Ukko and Nest.

But I was going to say something about Brutania, wasn't I?

 Beautifully painted panels, capable of easily conveying oodles of kinetic energy, the depth to the story, the heightened level of introspection that gives us a more mature take on Slaine.

All of it is just so great.

And it's not as if the more mature take on Slaine does away with the "Hero-talk" or the absurd grandstanding, or the weirder parts of celtic lore. No, the things we've come to expect of a Slaine comic are all still there but this time it's backed up by a weighty and involving narrative relying on the character development of our hero. And he goes far, people.

I don't think his psyche has been given this much attention before and it really makes these books stand out from the rest of the Slaine saga.

I haven't read book 3 yet, as the start of the comic makes it clear that I should go back and read parts 1 and 2 again to refresh my memory.

I'll have to see when I can give it the attention it deserves.

I'm very much looking forward to it.

The mouse captured... and freed.

Here he is then, yesterday's silly little bugger.

Would you believe he peeked underneath the door while I was on the toilet?

It just goes to show; voyeurs always get caught.

I spent the next 30 minutes playing a heated game of man and mouse, dismantling cupboards and shifting beds.

By the time I at last cornered him, literally in a corner, I felt quite sorry for him.

Poor thing must've been terrified.

But it ends well though; he calmed down by the time he was set free. Sorry about the end of the movie not keeping the mouse in focus, I got a little excited and forgot where to point the camera. At the very end you can just see him scoot away though.

Don't pay any attention to the gibberish spoken in the film, I doubt it's even a real language. It's more like sounds of exclamation, really. Cavemen happy with the hunt, while in the background exotic birds warble most strangely.

Purpose from Stories

It's all about how you get through the day. You tell yourself any story you like. The stories, the lies, the self-deception and deceit, no matter how uplifting or how degrading for you or others they may be; they don't matter. What matters is that you keep going. despite anything and despite everything, despite the rest.

It seems impossible and indeed, pointless, that you should.

But after a while your innate self, the nature of a human being will take over and as always you will fall back into the ploy of following the currents of life. letting yourself drift on the temporary whim and drive of others to point the way forward. Letting yourself glide along is the the trick.

We are people who live in thought. I can not give you a fraction of the stuff I've thought and the numerous and endless, pointless scenarios I've thought up to 'dream' myself through the day; they've all been fake, each and every one of them. but I'm still here, occasionally, and currently, to my great regret.

I tell myself it is for others that I do this thing. because there is no hope. there is no drive. there is no wish for, or of myself. I'm just plodding forwards. taking the path of least resistance, rolling into the next situation. Trusting, no, hoping that there is a light at the end of the dreary tunnel.

Some of my favourite fiction deals with this. And it's not that I always recognize this. just in some cases, obvious cases, I do.

True Detective, Scott Bakker's the Second Apocalypse, Malazan the Book of the Fallen, there's bound to be others. I'd like to mention the Acts of Caine and Baltimore but I'm not sure they fit the requirements.

Nihilism and the worthlessness of humankind (though this is absolutely not Malazan's message, but one of its messages is definitely that nature and life itself is probably better off without humanity's destructive selft). yet we all find meaning for ourselves. we tell ourselves the meaning that seems to apply, simply because there must be one. This existance could not possibly be without it.

Right?