Comic Book & Graphic Novel Round-Up (12/7/11)

Each week, Paste reviews the most intriguing comic books, graphic novels, graphic memoirs and other illustrated books.

Dragon Puncher Island
by James Kochalka
Top Shelf Productions, 2011
Rating: 8.0

Dragon Puncher Island, the hilarious sequel to the equally hilarious Dragon Puncher, is a family affair. Indie humorist elite James Kolchaka sticks to his bag of cats, kids and non-sequiturs with a cast comprised solely of players under his own roof. 6-year-old son Eli plays Spoony-E, a half drawn ape with a penchant for annoying the stoic guardians Dragon Puncher and Monster Slapper, who also happen to be the Kolchaka family cats. The delivery takes a kinetic multimedia splurge with quirky figures drawn in loud primary colors save for their faces, which are ripped straight from attic photo albums. The feline expressions are particularly priceless. Exasperation, excitement and a lot of indifference make the fuzzy brawlers outshine their Youtube brethren. The plaintive jokes flow perfectly with the art direction, culminating in a goofy, surreal, vaguely uncomfortable climax that made me want to read more about 2-dimensional toddler animals with broken eating utensils. By the end of Dragon Puncher Island, I found myself hating Kolchaka. I hate Kolchaka for making cute cliché things awesome. I hate Kolchaka for being a cooler middle-aged Dad then I’ll ever be. And more than anything else, I hate Kolchaka because he takes pictures of his cats and kids and makes people laugh for a living. That just isn’t fair. (SE)

The Defenders #1
by Matt Fraction and Terry and Rachel Dodson
Marvel Comics 2011
Rating: 8.0

At some point The Defenders became a joke. It was once one of the more popular superhero comics in the 1970s, bringing together some of the most powerful and vital characters in the Marvel Universe. Solo titles for Dr. Strange, Namor, and the Silver Surfer were intermittent, so writers of The Defenders had more freedom to experiment with their leads than, say, Avengers writers had with Iron Man or Captain America. Eventually that freedom resulted in one of the greatest superhero stories of the 1970s, when Steve Gerber’s absurd Headmen / Nebulon saga deconstructed the genre years before Alan Moore or Grant Morrison. The book struggled into a mid-80s cancellation, though, and became a joke among fans too young to remember its peak. The Defenders #1 is the latest in a long run of attempted revivals, and if this first issue is any indication of what we can expect every month, it might be the first to stick around for more than a year. Matt Fraction’s Marvel work is inconsistent, but Defenders #1 possesses that combination of humor, big ideas and incisive characterization found in his Invincible Iron Man and Immortal Iron Fist, with his New Age sensualist take on Dr. Strange a particularly deft stroke. After a visit from the Hulk Strange quickly recruits the other two founding Defenders and newcomers Red She-Hulk and Iron Fist to go stop what Fist calls an “evil ghost Hulk”. It’s an exciting start to a big dumb superhero yarn that might be less dumb than most, with some nice Kirby-referencing artwork from the Dodsons. Also it’s nice to see the return of the “continued after second page following” bottom-page blurbs, which Fraction quickly ties into his story in a way that I can only assume will impact future events. Defenders #1 is clever and fun, two qualities far too rare in today’s superhero comics. (GM)

Power Lunch, vol. 1: First Course
by J. Torres and Dean Trippe
Oni Press, 2011
Rating: 4.0

Sketch Monsters, vol. 1: Escape of the Scribbles
by Joshua Williamson and Vinny Navarette
Oni Press, 2011
Rating: 4.8

One of Oni’s specialties as a publisher is comics for kids, not skewed as young as Toon Books but not exactly trying to reach the older young-adult market either. Both Power Lunch and Sketch Monsters are new attempts at series, like the popular and wonderfully entertaining Salt Water Taffy, but neither reaches anywhere close to those heights. Of the two, Power Lunch is the bigger failure, a real shame considering the talent involved. Dean Trippe’s art, usually light and engaging, feels both static and hurried. The plot is really just a brief set-up of the premise, in the hope it will play out better over subsequent volumes. The whole thing seems a transparent attempt to appeal to boys of the age where they tend to give up reading but not a workable one. Sketch Monsters is a bit better. It, too, suffers from an emphasis on exposition and explanation, but its characters are more appealing, its visuals more complex and attractive. It suffers from overexplaining its metaphor (drawings come to life to express emotions), however, and from preaching extroversion to exactly the kids who may be sick of that message, and its randomly capitalized words can feel like a vocab test. If your kids are really itching for something new to read, even books without pictures are better than these. (HB)

Underwire
by Jennifer Hayden
Top Shelf, 2011
Rating: 6.0

Although things are improving, the comics scene is still pretty dude-centric, which I suspect is why Top Shelf is so enthused about this new collection of webcomics previously published at ACT-I-VATE.com by Jennifer Hayden. They’re loose in narrative and line, and they’re about as opposite from superhero and from testosterone as you can get. That means they get a little goddess-y at times, and I mean that literally. Hayden intersperses some full-page renderings of the Venus of Willendorf and the like between her paneled strips, which range from one to five pages, and if you’re not all into the power of the V, they can be a turn-off. If not for the profanity sprinkled throughout, Underwire would tip over into Ya-Ya Sisterhood territory, but it doesn’t, quite. That doesn’t mean adolescent males will enjoy this book. It’s still the kind of thing you should buy for your mom, if your mom is a little on the hippie side, but its freewheeling attitude is not entirely annoying, even to the hard-hearted (yours truly). (HB)