Poppy! and the Lost Lagoon

Poppy! and the Lost Lagoon was an unexpected delight I picked up at HeroesCon this year. It is an adventure book written by Matt Kindt, one of my favorite contemporary comics creators, with art by Brian Hurtt, who draws The Sixth Gun, a series I should check out because I hear great things about it.

Any way, when I saw they had a book aimed at upper elementary/middle school readers, I was excited to check it out. This book has a fantastic set-up. It is about Poppy Pepperington, a young adventurer who is accompanied by Colt Winchester, a gruff old sort who promised Pappy, Poppy's adventurer grandfather, that he would watch after her when he mysteriously disappeared (or died?). This duo meets up with Ramses, a thousands of years old pharaoh who looks like an 8-year old boy and is relegated to a penthouse apartment, who gives them new missions and adventures to undertake.

 

I will not spoil what they do or find on their adventure, but it involves exotic cities, a giant octopus, strange sea creatures, death traps, and fantastic happenings just this side of the supernatural. As you can see from the art and story, there are lots of minute details and intricacies in both the characters and the settings, and they all contribute to a wonderfully vibrant tapestry. The main narrative is nuanced and intriguing, with lots of surprises, twists, and silliness. I had a lot of fun reading this book, and I hope it is just the start to a series, because there is much potential here.

This book's creators are veteran comics people. Matt Kindt has created numerous graphic novels, including Super Spy, Red Handed, and Revolver, worked on his own series Mind MGMT and Dept H, as well as having written a good number of titles at Marvel, Valiant, and DC Comics. Brian Hurtt is known for his art in genre-bending books like The Sixth Gun and The Damned. Both Kindt and Hurtt have been nominated for major comics awards multiple times.

Many of the reviews praise this book as being an American version of Tintin, and I think that is high praise. Matthew Garcia summed it up as "a very enjoyable and lively book." Josh Canales wrote, "This family-friendly book is great for anyone who loves reading." Gwen and Andy at Comics Alternative "could not stop singing [its] praises."

Poppy! and the Lost Lagoon was published by Dark Horse, and they have a preview and more available here.

I met both Kindt and Hurtt at HeroesCon this year, and they were nice enough to sign my copy of the book. I think it would be fun and interesting for readers young and old, truly an all ages book.

The Valiant

I have not read a comic book from Valiant since the 1990s. And to be honest I don't think I can tell you much about the ones I did read, other than I remember Bob Layton artwork and Magnus the Robot Fighter. Well, the company is up for pretty much every Harvey Award category this year, a circumstance that some feel is suspicious given their market share size, and this collection of comics was available to borrow from Comixology Unlimited, so I figured why not? Also contributing to my decision was that it was written by Jeff Lemire and Matt Kindt, two prolific and well-respected comics creators whose works I have loved.

So, how was it, you ask? I loved it, and I am seriously thinking about following the adventures of some of the major players in this limited series. But I am getting ahead of myself. This collection contains four issues of the series meant to introduce (or reintroduce in my case) readers to the Valiant Universe. It has excellent and brief background on the major players, and although it is technically a crossover, it smartly focuses on a select few. The main plot deals with an ages old character named the Eternal Warrior in his quest to defend the Geomancer, a mystic strongly linked with the Earth, from being murdered by The Immortal Enemy. The rub is that this circumstance has happened three times before, and each time the Warrior has failed and the Earth plunged into a dark age. The intro to the book shows their first encounter/battle.

 

 

The difference this time is that there are government agencies, not to mention a good number of super-powered beings, that can assist the Eternal Warrior. Still the Enemy can use their greatest fears against them all, which makes the central character on the cover, Bloodshot, so important. He is an ex-agent enhanced by nanite technology whose memories have been wiped. He is a killing machine with a healing factor and no fear to exploit, and he is the last line of defense for the Geomancer. I won't spoil things any further, but I will say that I was quickly captivated by the story and artwork. As you can see from the preview, this book melds superhero art and narratives with legends and myths to excellent effect.

Lemire and Kindt wrote the story here, and Paolo Rivera provided the artwork. Lemire became known for his beautifully spare and brutal Essex County Trilogy as well as work on multiple superhero titles, and his original works The Underwater Welder and Trillium. Kindt also has created numerous graphic novels, including Super Spy, Red Handed, and Revolver, worked on his own series Mind MGMT and Dept H, as well as having written a good number of titles at Marvel and DC Comics. Rivera is a well established comics artist who has mostly done work for Marvel Comics. His line work and storytelling are exceptional. Lemire and Kindt speak about their work on The Valiant in this interview.

All of the reviews I have read about this collection have been glowing. David Harper described it as "one of the better superhero comics in recent years," adding that it was "certainly a comic worth reading for readers both new and old." Publishers Weekly called it "a classic adventure story that hits all the right notes." Jeff Lake praised it as "a fantastic read."

The Valiant was published by Valiant Entertainment, and they have more info about the book here. There is a preview available here from Comic Vine, where I copped the three pages above.

Red Handed: The Fine Art of Strange Crimes

Red Handed: The Fine Art of Strange Crimes was created by the same person who made Mind MGMT, my favorite graphic novel collection from last year. This book is similarly excellent, exploring similar themes about what defines crime and art while spinning a masterfully complex narrative full of quirky details and insanely compelling short tales.

The strange crimes that occur in the town of Red Wheel Barrow are myriad. There is a woman who steals only chairs, a thief who steals artwork so he can cut it into 100 pieces and sell them off individually, a magician who moonlights as a pick-pocket, a struggling author who steals street and building signs so she can create a warehouse-sized novel, and a photographer who creates personal conflicts and then profits from the images of them she captures.

There are two common threads connecting these capers: Detective Gould, who is infinitely perceptive and deductive, and who has never let a case go unsolved, and a mysterious Moriarty-type mastermind who tests him. Gould is a riff on Dick Tracy and named for his creator Chester Gould; he is a super-cop who always gets the culprit. He may have an excellent track record at work, but we catch glimpses into his personal life and see that his work obsessions have created distance at home from his wife, an art gallery owner.

This distance turns out to be a vulnerability where his enemy tests him, and in the process the areas of crime and art are blurred. The main conflict between Gould and his opponent is played out via a series of dialogue pages where the reader does not really know who is speaking. These sequences are text heavy and fraught with philosophical questions.

This existential, multidimensional, detailed, and addictive book was written and drawn by the  prolific Matt Kindt. He has created numerous graphic novels, including Super Spy and Revolver, worked on his own series Mind MGMT, and written a good number of titles at DC Comics, including Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E., Justice League of America, and Suicide Squad. He also has written a few comic books series at Marvel of late, including Infinity: The Hunt and Marvel Knights: Spider-Man. He has been nominated for multiple Eisner and Harvey Awards. Kindt speaks extensively about his work on Red Handed in this interview.

This book has perhaps been overshadowed by Kindt's many other works, but it has also been praised highly. CBR's Greg Burgas named it his favorite original graphic novel of 2013 and summed it up as "brilliant." NPR's Glen Weldon likened it to a mind trap that "snaps shut on the reader in a way that's ruthless, irrevocable and entirely satisfying." Booklist honored it with a starred review, and Kirkus Reviews called the book "elegant scribbles from an electric mind," "told by way of Socratic dialogue and pulp homage."

Red Handed was published by First Second, and they provide a preview and more information here.

Mind MGMT, Volume 1: The Manager

An airplane takes off and when it lands all 120 passengers on board (save one 7-year-old boy) have complete amnesia (good things the pilots remembered how to land the plane). These people cannot remember a single detail about their lives, not marriages, relatives, childhoods. Nothing. Add to the mystery that one of the passengers, one Henry Lyme, cannot be found.

Enter Meru, a frustrated author who cannot come up with a follow-up to her debut true crime novel. She decides she is going to get to the bottom of this "amnesia flight" as her new writing project. In her quest for truth, she finds herself penniless, followed by the CIA, hunted by strange and powerful figures, and confronted with the existence of an agency of spies who have psychic abilities. These agents have such control of world situations that human beings almost seem like pets or even insects to them, which lends a frightening aspect to the proceedings.

Apart from the plot, which has its own amazing array of twists and turns, there is also a guidebook entry embedded in each page. These instructions lend a different angle to plot developments, and over time they become more and more relevant. This attention to detail is simply astounding and helps make this book one weird, wild trip.

This book's creator, Matt Kindt, is prolific of late, producing graphic novels like Red Handed and Super Spy while also writing a good number of titles at DC Comics, including Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E., Justice League of America, and Suicide Squad. He has been nominated for multiple Eisner and Harvey Awards, and is generally a well regarded creator. His writing is full of real world facts and details that lend a realism to the suspenseful situations he creates. His art is sketchy and atmospheric, typically enhanced with watercolors, as you can see in this sample page from the "Mind MGMT Case Files" that end each chapter:

The sketchy aspect of the art contributes to the plot in excellent manner, setting up misdirections and confusion that only sharpen the mysteries and plot twists further. I found this collection of issues #0-6 of the monthly comic book series to be eerie, gripping, and well plotted. There are so many details in this book, and they all contribute to a grand scheme that is not apparent at first. I cannot wait to see where these characters are going and what other secrets will be revealed in future volumes.

Reviews I have read about this book have been very positive. Seth T. Hahne was "incredibly impressed" with Kindt's "seamless, off-handed, perfect world-building." Sean Edgar described how it "reads like a comic that has had an inordinate amount of thought put into it." Leslie at Working for the Mandroid wrote, "This is the most bizarre comic I have ever read, and I could not put it down."I particularly agree with these sentiments, and I felt this book was utterly compelling and engrossing.

This volume of Mind MGMT, like the ongoing comic book series, is published by Dark Horse. There is a preview and more available here.