The Boy Who Kicked Pigs (1999)

Author: Tom Baker | Illustrator: David Roberts | Page Count: 124 

“Robert withdrew himself in preparation for the kick of a lifetime.  And then he burst into life and delivered a marvellous kick to Trevor’s arse.”

A subversive fantasy novella told in the style of a kid’s story.  The language used is purposefully simplistic and childlike, and for the most part wasted on the lack of anything interesting to convey.

The story moves from one event to the next with little regard for cohesion.  The first half feels like it was written simply to make up the page count, so that it could be considered a novella and not a short.  The second half has a focus that improves the narrative greatly, the light of which throws the first half into an even darker pit of pointlessness.  It's a shame as it’s a beautifully presented book.  It’s the size of a paperback but bound in an attractive, slick hard binding.  The paper is thicker than usual and serves the illustrations well.

Every second page has a black ink sketch to illustrate some part of the story detailed on the adjacent page.  The pictures are on the left side and the text on the right, and quite often were depicting something half a page ahead of where I’d read, so there were dozens of mild spoilers.  The illustrations will please fans of Tim Burton’s sketchy nightmare style; they're very obviously inspired by him and are the reason it's still in residence on my shelf.  Overall, it's a quality presentation for a work that I don't feel tries hard enough to really deserve it.

2 yes, it is that Tom Baker out of 5

Star Trek: Countdown (2009)

Authors: Mike Johnson / Tim Jones | Illustrator: David Messina | Page Count: 98

"Friends, Romulans, countrymen... we share the same ears."

A prequel comic to the 2009 reboot of the Star Trek franchise. I consider such tie-ins to be mostly easy milk from the cash-cow, but Countdown is 99% water.

Set post-Nemesis (2002) it attempts to link The Next Generation cast with events from the film, acting as a kind of passing of the torch, but it's ham-fisted. In most cases, cameos from TNG's crew exist for no reason other than to have cameos from TNG crew. Their actions and dialogue aren't properly tailored to fit how their TV show counterparts would act or speak in the same situation; change the facial likeness and it'd be difficult to guess who it's meant to be.

Speaking of which, artwork is generally good, with characters looking like the actors they represent; both light and shadow is handled well by the colourist(s).

Pictures of the new film's crew are slotted between each chapter. I don't know why that is, they've neither place nor part in the story; except for Captain James T. Kirk, once, and he looks like William Shatner, not the new guy. If you want to know who does feature in the book, take a look at the cover art (pictured above).

Naturally, the comic will have limited appeal to non-Trek fans, but I feel that discerning long-time Trek fans will have almost no interest in the contrived plot and uncharacteristic actions and dialogues of the cast. If that's so, then it raises the questions of who the target audience really is and why the publishers even bothered to produce it in the first place?

I think both questions have the same answer, which is that it exists to exploit fans (existing and new). The people that recognise the cow for what it is but can tolerate a glass of watered-down milk with their TV snacks should maybe seek it out from a library, because it's probably a read-once-only kind of book for them.

The book collects together Star Trek: Countdown issues 1-4.

1½ red blobs out of 5

Ghosts Caught on Film 3: Photographs of the Supernatural (2011)

Author:  Gordon Rutter  |  Page Count: 159

With an ever increasing amount of photographic evidence of the paranormal, Gordon Rutter takes command to organize the images in this collection and administer his expert analysis. GCoF3 is a hardcover book consisting of over 60 disputed images of ghost photography.

The photos are organized into 8 chapters including opinions from the author on each piece. From reading each description it's obvious that Rutter is an expert in the field of photography and has gone to great lengths to investigate the stories on each image. The author's level of technical knowledge (i.e. camera & film type, shutter speed, etc) when debunking the content is truly fascinating. He never once labels any photo as definitive proof of ghosts, only calling them "intriguing mysteries". And though there are a mass of interesting shots, a number of them I found hardly supernatural.

At times it felt as if I was staring at a Where's Waldo book, never locating the intended subject. While followers of ghost photography will find this entry intriguing be warned that some images are more curiosity than paranormal.

4 cases of pareidolia out of 5

Nutted by Borderline

Serenity: Those Left Behind [2005]

Author: Joss Whedon & Brett Matthews |  Illustrator: Will Conrad & Laura Martin

Page Count:  104 Pages

“What’s up, Wash?”

”The usual -- crime

…and us trying to avoid punishment.”

You know the story by now:  Buffy The Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon created a space western TV series called Firefly for the FOX network.  FOX hated it, tossed it around, seeming like they purposedly wanted it canceled and got their wish after 11 episodes.  Fans created an uproar, DVD sales skyrocketed through the roof, resulting in Firefly being taken to the bigscreen to tie up loose ends in the feature film Serenity.

Whedon didn’t have enough screentime to tie-up everything in 2 hours, so went to Dark Horse comics for a 3-issue mini-series that bridged the gap between the series finale and the feature film.  Serenity: Those Left Behind is not essential reading and answers some things I preferred left a mystery but is still a good time that captures the feeling of the series perfectly.

Written by Joss Whedon & Firefly/Supernatural writer Brett Matthews is probably why it seems exactly like a lost episode.  In fact, a little too much at times, as the format doesn’t translate into graphic novel form all that well.   What’s great though, is Whedon & Matthews don’t go “Oh look, it’s in comic form!  We don’t have a budget limit here, we can do whatever the hell we want!”  They stay true to the series and let the story pacing unravel at a slow, yet pleasant pace without ever relying on anything too huge.

As a huge fan of series I can recommend it to anyone else who’s a fan…however if you’re not, it really makes no sense at all, as it spends no time explaining the backstory and that’s where it falls short.

It's available as 3 out of print separate issues or collected into a TPB or HC edition which is worth purchasing for Nathan Fillion's entertaining foreward.

3 BIG DAMN blue hands out of 5


Nutted by cuckoo

The Sandman: Vol VI: Fables and Reflections (1993)

Author: Neil Gaiman | Illustrators: Kent Williams / Shawn McManus / Stan Woch / Duncan Eagleson / Bryan Talbot / John Watkiss / Jill Thompson / P.Craig Russell | Page Count: 259 

“Death was a little older than Dream.  Things had the potential to die before they had the potential to dream.”

Book 6 of 10 in the Sandman saga is another collection of standalones.  It’s twice as long as the previous collection (Vol III: Dream Country) but only half as good.

There are nine stories in all.  Four of which are known collectively as Distant Mirrors, and three of which are known collectively as Convergence.  The Distant Mirrors section, featuring historical figures, offers little of interest for the average reader; except perhaps Ramadan, the 50th issue of the series, the lingering revelations after the last page is turned, and P. Craig Russell’s beautiful art help raise it above average.  The Convergence section is mostly uninteresting, except for the lengthy Orpheus tale, which is essential to the overall arc of the series.

The remainder of the shorts are merely subtext that I found tedious to read.
They flit backwards and forwards in time, showing different eras of Morpheus’ lifetime but they are out of sequence, the publication order has been shuffled around for some reason leaving all the better stuff in the second half.  This made the first half a real struggle to get through.

The book collects together Sandman issues 29 – 31, 38 – 40 and 50, Sandman Special issue 1, and Vertigo Preview issue 1

2½ Greek myths resurrected out of 5

The Sandman: Vol V: A Game of You (1993)

Author: Neil Gaiman | Illustrators: Shawn McManus / Colleen Doran / Bryan Talbot | Page Count: 189 

"We will all die, and the land will die, and the world will die, and the Cuckoo will reign in bleak dominion over all.” 

Book 5 of 10 in the Sandman saga.  For the people that accuse Gaiman of sacrificing character development so he can focus on the fantastical and whimsical, this one is for you; it'll crush your argument flat, like a little flat crushed dead argument bug thing, with orange blood and a satisfying crunch.  It picks up the story of someone last seen in Vol II (The Doll's House) and treats us to the details of how her life has changed.  Lives may begin and end in Sandman but stories go on.

All the characters are beautifully crafted; each has a perfect part to play in the tale within a tale, and out of it, becoming a critique of the genre as a whole.  It’s a fairy story that both utilises and parodies that whimsical aspect of fairy stories, the childish locales, the unrealistic aspirations, the creatures, and the journeys that the hero takes; it’s Wonderland, it’s Narnia, it’s Middle Earth, it’s Oz and it’s the part of every one of us that hides the things we hope and fear.  It also jocundly makes use of, and exposes the absurdity of, the deus ex machina that comics use much too often.  It’s flat-out magnificent.  Go read it.

It also introduces a new character who will return much later and bring great change to the Dream King.

The book collects together Sandman issues 32 - 37

5 it’s a small world for a big dog and a sleeping beauty out of 5

The Sandman: Vol IV: Season of Mists (1992)

Author: Neil Gaiman | Illustrators: Malcolm Jones III / P. Craig Russell / George Pratt / Dick Giordano | Page Count: 218

"To absent friends, lost loves, old Gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the Devil his due.” 

Book 4 of 10 in the Sandman saga introduces more of the Endless family as they gather for a family meeting.  What invariably happens at family gatherings?   Anthropomorphic personifications of abstract terms aren’t exempt.  Shit hits the fan.  It’s a hard life being an Endless.  Morpheus’ conscience gets the better of him and he attempts to right a wrong he committed centuries before (see Vol 2: The Doll's House) by going somewhere he has no wish to ever go to again (see Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes).  See now why I said to read them in order?

Morpheus has something he doesn’t want.  Everyone else, who doesn’t have it, wants it.  He has to decide which of them, if any, deserves it.  This is the best multi-part story yet.  Gaiman wove a garment so elaborate, with so many strands of weave flying loose, that he gave himself the means to knit any number of scarves from in the future.  There are minor flaws in the weave if you look closely but it’s so beautiful you won’t care.  Later in the book is a second gathering which creates ripples so big they are best described as immense crashing waves, leaving dead fish all over the place.  Not literally, there aren’t really dead fish but there are a few dead school kids who got a spin-off (The Children's Crusade) which I haven’t read as it’s never been collected as a trade.  *Grumble.  Talking of spin-offs, if you ever wish to read Mike Carey’s spin-off series Lucifer (and you should, it’s excellent) it would be a good idea to try and get a hold of this book first.

If you’ve read comic books for any length of time you’ll know that Todd Klein is the best letterer in the business, this book gives him a chance to show the world why that is.  I bet he had as much fun making this one as I did reading it.

The book collects together Sandman issues 21 - 28

5 crazy kids and an empty cardboard box out of 5