A world of four color magic arrives every Wednesday.
Stories and adventures of heroes and villains, good versus evil.
Tales that entertain and excite by talented writers and artists.
Here are my thoughts Among The Panels.
Penny Dora and the Wishing Box #1
Writer: Michael Stock
Artist: Sina Grace
Publisher: Image
Comics
Price: $2.99
I chose to read this comic purely based on the name alone. I love stories about Pandora and everything that goes along with them. What I got was a lot different than what I expected, but in the best way possible.
Penny Dora and the Wishing Box #1 is refreshingly sweet and fun. Michael Stock, with help from his daughter, has really created something fun for everyone; with a modern style family and a teenager you can get behind.
The story is about Penny Dora and a Christmas package that was left on her doorstep. On Christmas day Penny and her mother open the mystery gift to find an old wooden box.
The box was empty but Penny wanted to save it anyway. Her mother thought it was a bad joke gift sent by Penny’s father.
Penny shoved the box under her bed and went to sleep. In the middle of the night the box began to make weird noises and a crazy light was coming out of it. She picked up the box and noticed that it was like brand new again. The old wood was no longer aged, the paint was fresh, and the hinges were shiny. Just as she want to look inside a voice came out of it and asked her to make a wish. Being a teenager, she dropped it on the ground. Once she was no longer holding on to it the box reverted back to it old aged self. Being afraid of it she shoved it back under her bed and forgot about it.
Well, at least until her friend came over and wanted to see it. She grabbed it out of her hands and crammed it back under the bed. That night her cat, Iggy, crept into the room and found the box. It asked him to make a wish and Iggy wished for his favorite thing in all the world; ham.
There are a lot of things to like about this book. The writing feels like it comes from the heart. A man writing a comic based on a story that his daughter wrote is so sweet. It’s a special kind of awesome. The back matter couple of pages explain how this book came about and it’s honestly heartwarming. You can just tell there was a ton of love that went into this book.
The art also brings you into the unique world. There are a couple of panels where Penny’s face is drawn in a cute chibi sort of way and it brought a smile to my face. This book has a playfulness that works really well. The whole team did a great job bringing this story to life.
Score: 4 out of 5
Terrible Lizard #1
Writer: Cullen Bunn
Artist: Drew Moss
Publisher: Oni Press
Price: $3.99
Terrible Lizard #1 is a smashingly good first issue. Cullen Bunn’s sense of timing and humor might be a little strange but so is a time traveling T-Rex.
The first issue introduces us to the normal kind of characters you might expect to find in a science fiction time travel story. We have the military man that only wants results and will do anything to get them. Then we have the loveable, but kooky scientist that tries to express that time travel is a delicate thing and can’t be rushed and of course will be rushed anyway. In this story we also have the scientist’s teenage daughter with an attitude problem and no friends.
They all live within this giant laboratory complex where all kinds of crazy science things happen.
Our main character, Jess, is an only child living with her father far away from the normal world. Her only friend was another inhabitant of the complex but his father had to move so she was left alone.
She goes to see her dad at the lab while he is doing his first experiment. After it starts something goes wrong and a giant T-Rex appears inside the tiny lab. Jess is thrown into the middle of it and is the first person the dinosaur comes in contact with. The military guys want to kill it but it turns out to be a friendly giant lizard. It happens that when it saw Jess it kind of imprinted on her and now they are linked forever.
It’s kind of a cliché opener for a story but it works none-the-less. I really enjoyed the subtle humor that Bunn put into his characters. Time travel is one of my favorite genres so I enjoyed the techno-babble that comes with it and Bunn didn’t disappoint. Even though the characters are all archetypes they breathe on their own and feel natural.
The art style of Drew Moss is different and really enjoyable. The T-Rex’s design is super cool. It’s not your standard big headed green giant beast. This time he’s orange and has earthlike scales that run down his back and its eyes are pretty neat. The other monster designs are also really inventive. Even though there isn’t anything too new and outside the box in this book it’s utterly enjoyable.
Score: 3.5 out of 5
The Ghost Fleet #1
Writer: Donny Cates
Artist: Daniel Warren Johnson
Publisher: Dark Horse
Comics
Price: $3.99
I didn’t know what to expect from a book about a bunch of combat trained truckers but it certainly wasn’t anything like what The Ghost Fleet #1 gave me.
I went into thinking it would be just a road rage infused story about a weirdly elite trucking service but instead it spiraled out of control into a Mad Max inspired road tale full of violence and unexplained explosions.
The book opens on the year 1812 and it talks about how Andrew Jackson used pirates and underhanded folk to win wars.
Then it quickly transitions into the modern day.
We find a set of characters blazing down the highway in a giant big rig.
Things get out of hand almost instantly and we are thrown into a crazy flurry of pages full of exploding heads.
The convoy gets attacked by some kind of military group with bazookas and other explosive type weapons. They fight all the way down the road until the truck eventually spills over a bridge and careens down into an empty river bed.
The group trying to get whatever cargo is in the back of the truck surround it and get ready to attack but are met with something strange coming out of the back of the truck. Some kind of green colored explosion happens and wipes them all out. The end of the issue comes pretty quick since almost 10 pages are just images of a truck driving down the road while its inhabitants kill various people exceedingly more violent ways.
The story is kind of wacky but the ending makes it all worth it. It’s just hard to understand it all until the end because there isn’t much exposition. We are just thrown into the middle of the story and we know nothing about these characters. They all seem to have a back story that is important but we are not party to it. This would be annoying in any other book but this one is just about bad ass truck fights and weird unexplained images that eventually lead to a great payout. I hope Donny Cates crafted a really cool story to follow this up with.
The art is pretty inconsistent but not unreadable. The first splash page is just impressive in all aspects. I sat and stared at it for a long time before forging on and from there it just gets less clean and clear. The lines get sketchier but by the time I got to end of the issue I didn’t mind but going back and looking at the splash page makes me angry because I wish the whole book liked as stellar as that.
Overall The Ghost Fleet #1 is an out-there comic book that I’m sure others will enjoy more than I did.
Score: 3 out of 5
Tooth and Claw #1
Writer: Kurt Busiek
Artist: Benjamin Dewey
Publisher: Image
Comics
Price: $2.99
Tooth and Claw #1 is an amazing opening book to what I think is going to be one of the biggest and most epic books of the year.
The writing, the art, the colors, and the lettering are the best of the best and when you dive into this book you get lost in it almost instantly.
Kurt Busiek has created a splendid world full of talking animals.
They live in a giant floating city. This issue is filled with world building but we still get to know a lot of great characters. This world is full of magic and ritual but there is also a caste system in place.
The story moves all over the place but there was one character that we kept coming back to; a white bull terrier pup known as Dunstan.
His father is a high ranking official in the city and after a certain scene in the book we all learn that he and the rest of the floating city dwellers think very little of the land people.
The entire world revolves around the buying and selling of magic.
Their history speaks of an eternal warrior that broke the world apart and let magic seep in. It seems as if the world has been using the magic too much and it’s starting to fade. They call a giant meeting of all the magical people from all across the world to try and find a cure for their magic problem. A warthog magic woman named Gartha explains that she knows how to fix the world. All the prophecies spoke of the eternal warrior coming back to save everyone from the lack of magic. Her idea is to reach back into time and pull him into the present.
The leader of the city tells her that he won’t allow it but of course she thinks her plan is the only way to save the world and with the lack of magic being present a ton of other people follow her.
They go to the edge of the city and start the ritual. They manage to open a portal and grab hold of something on the other side but as this happens the city loses all of its magic and falls from the sky. It crashes into the world below killing hundreds of people and destroying the city. The book ends with the land dwellers surrounding the rubble of the city. We see that Gartha thinks she was able to retrieve the hero.
For a book so long every page was amazing.
This kind of fantasy world is so enticing and when it’s all flushed out I’m sure people will be talking about it for years to come. With Ben Dewey’s art, every page is a gift. The art is unparalleled and I honestly couldn’t find anything wrong with it. This book came together beautifully and with its 48 pages of ad free content for the low, low price of $2.99 it will be hard to beat.
This is one of the best comics I have read in years.
Score: 5 out of 5
Gotham Academy #2
Writer: Becky Cloonan, Brenden Fletcher
Artist: Karl Kerschl
Publisher: DC Comics
Price: $2.99
The first issue of Gotham Academy was filled with an intense mystery about our main character and her place within the Batman world.
This issue asks more questions than answers them but with Karl Kershl’s art it doesn’t matter. I feel like I could read this book forever without ever finding anything out.
Olive Silverlock still keeps her secrets to herself while trying to be a teenager and a student.
The mystery of what happened to her over the summer is still very much hidden but at least it feels like it’s getting closer to being revealed. We learn that she has a fear of bats which is pretty poignant for this book.
This issue doesn’t offer that much more to move the story along from page to page but it thrilled me all the same. Adding in the penguin’s great grandmother’s diary as writing fodder helped solidify this story within the Batman world. It ends with Olive surrounded by fire hinting that her mother is someone special. This is one of the prettiest pages I have seen from DC in a long time.
When I was reading this issue it just stuns me how much detail Karl Kerschl puts into every panel.
Even the background characters have freckles or some other type of feature that makes them stand out. There is no reason for an artist to do this but it felt like he really loves every single person in this book. Olive and company have so many quirks in their appearances that they feel real even when they are rendered in the more cartoon lined style.
Olive’s history teacher is caught smoking at one point and I was shocked at first.
I was trying to rack my brain to see if I could place any other character, besides a villain, that smoked and I came up short. This type of tiny character trait just makes them stand out against the backdrop of hundreds of characters you forget once they are out of the panel. Even though this book is aimed at the younger audience it feels so hip and relevant that everyone can jump in and enjoy it. It’s just so great to read.
I really enjoy the fact that I know that Olive is being welcomed into the Bat-family and I hope to see her grow and burst out into other Bat-titles.
With writing so strong and mixed with the visuals by Kerschl this book can’t fail. I can’t imagine anyone picking up this book and not enjoying it. There are just so many great things to go back and read and look at. Just going panel to panel and enjoying the little details makes this book worth every penny.
Score: 5 out of 5
