[Here’s another one where I come off as a merciless cunt.
Almost all of my opinions have changed since I wrote this. There are a lot of
writers and artists involved, so I might as well just offer a blanket apology.
Nah, that wouldn’t explain enough. Let’s get started.
Neil Gaiman: Sorry, this story really was boring. I like
your Sandman characters, but this one fell too short for me.
Michael Zulli: I have since grown to appreciate your artwork
and am no longer quite so dismissive.
Brian Azzarello: this wasn’t as bad as I remembered it. I
think the problem was that I wasn’t all in on 100 Bullets yet.
Eduardo Risso: I don’t even know where that came from.
Ripping off John McCrea?! Sheer insanity. I was 100% wrong about you.
Michael Lark: Your work is always awesome. I was 100% wrong
when I wrote this.
Jamie Delano: Well, okay. I was right about it being
confusing, but I was extremely happy with Outlaw Nation, which came from this
story.
Ed Brubaker: I was kind of right about you at the time. You
wrote about nothing but teen angst, but you were the best at it. Now that you’ve
branched out in so many different directions, you are one of the best comics
writers working today.
Warren Pleece: I was flat out a dick to you. Sorry. I’m not
a big fan, but I shouldn’t have gone after you like that.
Brian K. Vaughan: Sorry. The story didn’t excite me very
much. Very little of your Swamp Thing run interested me much. However, a lot of
your other work is some of the best I’ve ever read, especially Y: The Last Man
and Saga.
I think I’ve covered all my bases on that one. Yeah, I was a
raging dick back then, and I should not have been allowed access to ink and
paper. It was in the days before I discovered alcohol, which made me a vastly
better person. Anyway, this is from the Elmhurst College Leader Dec. 6, 1999.]
You can always tell that Christmas is on its way when
Vertigo puts out its annual Winter’s Edge issue, collecting stories from their
ongoing (and in this case, upcoming) monthlies.
Kicking off this issue is a less than legendary story from
the legendary Neil Gaiman. Drawn by Michael Zulli, it’s a story about Desire,
one of the characters from the now defunct Sandman series. It’s actually a
pretty boring story, mostly because no one gives a damn about the characters,
and Desire’s only in it for a short while. In addition to that, Zullie’s work
is a terrible mess. It’s rough and quite unclear. Moments that are supposed to
be touching are rendered useless by Zulli’s lack of talent. His art might be
appropriate in depicting the mad poet, Algernon, but not anything else.
Speaking of poetry, Gaiman, who is usually quite the poet,
fails in Algernon’s rhymed musings. All in all, it’s a well written (aside from
the poetry) but boring story.
“Silencer Night,” a story from 100 Bullets, is a bit better.
It’s more interesting, but it’s also pointless. Writer Brian Azzarello has a
remarkable ear for dialogue, but artist Eduardo Risso keeps ripping John MCCrea
off (and, even worse, he does a terrible job at it). Both did much better,
though, with their modern day take on the ‘60’s comic, Jonny Double.
This story, while it maintains interest, works toward
nothing. It merely portrays Christmas Eve at a police station, emphasizing the
insanity of it all. The best moment is when a man in cuffs is screaming, “Don’
touch me don’ touch me . . . We’re everywhere! Watch the wood choppers! Ronald
Reagan knows the tru—” At which point someone breaks a chair over his head.
While it’s good for laughs, there’s no reason for this scene, and it’s never
referred to again.
“Waiting for Good Dough,” from Books of Magic, takes place
at the Inn Between the Worlds, where a couple of dead boys pretending to be
detectives are searching for Timothy Hunter, the greatest mage of his time. The
thing is, Tim’s now a girl, and his smart-ass tendencies are gone. Maybe that’s
a good thing, but the fact that he was a smart-ass was the most attractive
characteristic he had. No one can write Tim like Gaiman, and it’s certainly not
him writing this story. Peter Gross does a terrible job with a character with
so much potential. Artist Michael Lark isn’t so great, either. His work on
Scene of the Crime was ten times better, while here it’s just lazy.
One can always count on John Constantine for Christmas spirit
in the Hellblazer story “Another Bloody Christmas.” Written and drawn by Dave
Gibbons, it’s one of the best stories Winter’s Edge has to offer this year. Not
only is it expertly written, but the artwork is some of the best Hellblazer has
ever seen, and it definitely ranks up there with Steve Dillon and Sean
Phillips.
For John, it’s just another lousy Christmas. He’s out of
cigarettes and has to walk around in search of a shop that’s open (even the
24-hour places are closed) with a hole in one shoe, letting the slush in to
freeze his foot. To make matters worse, he stumbles across the burned up body
of a man who conjured up a demon from a plague pit with the Eezee-Glide Ouija
Board he got for Christmas. The bodies keep piling up as John makes his way to the
demon and a pack of cigarettes. Easily the most entertaining story here.
Another entertaining story is “Borealis” from The Dreaming.
It reads like a Native American myth, complete with the Mother Raven and a bear
that eats the sun. The Dreaming, which is normally a boring comic, shines
through with this one story penned by Caitlin R. Kiernan. Artist Shawn McManus
matches Kiernan’s storytelling with child-like, yet brutally bloody, artwork.
All in all, a highly entertaining story that could possibly be a real Native
American myth, it’s that well written.
The funniest story comes, naturally, from Transmetropolitan
writer Warren Ellis and artist Darick Robertson. “Next Winters” takes up a mere
17 panels, but the joke is unbelievable. Spider Jerusalem, beyond a doubt the most vile,
contemptibly vicious character ever to walk a comic book, tells us how much he
hates Christmas but loves winter. For his take on Christmas, check out last
year’s Winter’s Edge—it’s hilarious what he says about Santa Claus. This year,
one could question why he loves winter so much. “Not just because I like to see
old people suffering,” he assures us. He loves the change winter brings,
because “every new winter, things got a bit better.” According to this loveable
journalist, snow used to burn people. He also talks about his addiction to
news. He keeps watching it “just in case the president suffers a fatal aircraft
toilet accident that chucks his intestines over the city like streamers at a
ticker-tape parade.” There’s also a hilarious bit involving puppies and wood-chippers.
This year, he has a new toy: the Frost-Biter 7-K, a multiple
snowball launcher he uses to annihilate his filthy assistants. Grinning with
this gun on his shoulder, flicking his cigarette butt at us, he says,” Spider
Jerusalem: more famous than Jesus, better dressed than Santa Claus, wouldn’t be
seen dead on a cross, and has never been caught up a chimney. So I deserve your
money more.” That’s the Christmas spirit!
One of the new monthlies being offered up by Vertigo is “the
Great Satan,” and here appears the first story, “Minor Characters.” Written by
Jamie Delano (the mastermind behind the first 39 issues of Hellblazer and the
highly creative, if depressing, series 20/20 Vision) and drawn by Goran
Sudzuka, it’s mildly interesting and highly confusing. The story feels like
there’s something missing, which will hopefully be presented when the series
actually starts, and thus cannot stand on its own as a story. Sudzuka is a
pretty talented artist reminiscent of Mark Buckingham. The verdict on the
story, however, is still out.
Another new monthly is Deadenders, which offers “The Morning
After.” Writer Ed Brubaker is an excellent writer, but he writes about the same
thing all the time. Scene of the Crime was the best thing he ever wrote, and
even that involved teen angst (except the teen in that case had grown up to be
a private investigator). Prez was also very intelligently written, but it was
the ultimate in teen angst. Brubaker is great at portraying that angst, but
that seems to be all he ever writes about. Here is teen angst again, but this
time it’s in the future. Beezer is the teen in question, and he wants nothing
to do with his family, he drinks and does massive amounts of drugs to escape
his reality, he’s got a crush on the local waitress, and he spends Christmas
morning offering up his indulgences of the night past to the porcelain god.
It’s great stuff, but it’s the same old stuff Brubaker’s been doing, this time
with Warren Pleece drawing it. Pleece is a terrible artist and always will be,
but to his credit, this is the best artwork he’s ever done, even if it is shit.
Over the past twenty-some years, Swamp Thing has been an on
again, off again series. The last Swamp Thing series, which lasted a little
over 170 issues, ended a few years ago. This Winter’s Edge marks the return,
once again, of a Swamp Thing title. This time, it’s quite different. Rather
than having Swamp Thing Alec Holland as the main character, his daughter Tefe
takes the spotlight. It’s highly doubtful that there can be Swamp Thing without
Alec, and this story, “Sow and Ye Shall reap,” isn’t too great. Writer Brian K.
Vaughan fully grasps Tefe’s character and her abilities, but his story is
highly uninteresting. It’s a struggle to get through this eight-page story.
Artist Roger Petersen isn’t much different—his artwork is blocky and messy.
There are some good stories and some bad stories in Winter’s
Edge #3, but it’s worth it. The price may be a bit steep at seven bucks, but
it’s Christmas. Indulge. The good stories are certainly worth it.
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