GRAPHIC NOVEL and TRADE PAPERBACK (TPB) REVIEWS

Runners: Bad Goods
see my review here

Ruse: Enter the Detective 2003 (SC TPB) 160 pages

Written by Mark Waid. Pencils by Butch Guice, and Jeff Johnson. Inks by Mike Perkins, Paul Neary.
Colours: Laura Martin (a.k.a. Laura DePuy), Jason Lambert. Letters: Dave Lanphear.

Reprinting: Ruse #1-6 (2002) - plus covers

Rating: * * * * (out of 5)

Number of readings: 1

Published by CrossGen Comics

Imagine a movie about Sherlock Holmes directed by Howard Hawks (with his flare for snappy banter and the gender switching he brought to "The Front Page" when he turned it into "His Girl Friday"), add a supernatural spin, and throw in the pulp-era staple of a hero with a network of operatives...and you might get an idea of Ruse.

And at its best, it's every bit as fun as it sounds.

Ruse is set in an alternate reality late 19th Century (presumably England), where bat-like gargoyles flitter about the streets the way pigeons and sparrows do ours. Simon Archard is a Sherlock Holmes-type: a brilliant detective, able to infer clues from things most people don't even notice, but with a lack of people skills. He's rude, abrupt, and condescending. His Dr. Watson-esque female sidekick is the feisty Emma Bishop who, in some respects, is more truly the star, in that she provides some of the narration and the story often follows her without Archard, more than Archard without her. She's also more compassionate. Their relationship is flinty at times, allowing for amusing banter and sarcastic asides.

But there's a little bit more at work here, because Emma has a secret unbeknownst to Simon. She has magical powers (to stop time), and seems to be here with an agenda to study, and/or subtly teach, Simon.

The opening story arc has the two investigating a newly arrived Baroness in a plot that is perhaps intended to have vague echoes of "Dracula" -- though only vague. It throws us instantly into this world, as though already an on-going series with a history to the characters already in place. We are casually introduced to Simon's various eccentric operatives, from a child savant to an ex-boxer, to characters meant to evoke pre-existing figures such as a chimney sweep named Bert -- ala "Mary Poppins" -- and a man dressed like the Elephant Man (both appear only briefly).

The series is cut from similar cloth as Alan Moore's and Kevin O'Neil's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen with its light-hearted evocation of Victorian Era fantasy adventure given a modern spin. But Ruse is frankly better -- despite its tongue-in-cheek aspect, it's a more human, more narrative-driven version of the concept.

The art by Butch (Jackson) Guice is also a stand-out. Guice is an artist who's been around for a long time, and has always been a perfectly serviceable artist...but his work here is light years ahead of anything else I've seen by him. Perhaps some due goes to inker Mike Perkins, or colourist Laura Martin. But the art is wonderfully effective, full of detailed city scenes, and period drawing rooms, well realized wardrobes, and careful, realist figures and faces full of energy and conviction. If you're going to do a period piece, it helps to have an artist who can draw period details. Guice even manages to slip in a certain element of sensuality...no easy feat giving that the women all dress in shoulder-to-feet gowns. But there is a lush beauty to his women.

Guice also experiments with the comicbook format, his panel arrangements being such that you read from left to right across a two page spread. It can take a bit to adjust to -- particularly as he isn't entirely consistent: the first few pages are conventional, read-each-page-at-a-time, sort of stuff, and even later he occasionally breaks his own format. But once you figure it out, it's an interesting approach, almost like a "widescreen" comic. Curiously, not so very long ago I had been thinking along those very lines, how it might be interesting for an artist to try such a stylistic experiment.

At the same time, the story can be a bit oblique -- in writing and art -- in a way that means some scenes have to be read carefully to get what's happening. The first panel of the second page is, itself, a good example. Well, we can say oblique...or we can say confusingly done.

The first four chapters comprise the initial story arc and it's a delightful romp -- fun, clever, exciting, with a touch of the macabre. Granted, as often happens with Sherlock Holmes pastiches (or homages as this more truly is, since, after all, it's not about Sherlock Holmes), it's more a suspense-thriller than a genuine mystery. We learn the Baroness is the villain early, and as Simon and Emma uncover aspects of her villainy, we wait to learn what her master plan is. But then it turns out, there isn't one. Her actions aren't so much a means to an end...they're the end in and of itself.

Still, as a rollicking adventure, it's thoroughly entertaining.

That story comprises only four of the six chapters collected here. The fact that the next two issues are relatively stand alone affairs should be welcome. You get one epic, novel length adventure...plus two bonus stories! Part of the appeal of the initial story arc is its very length, as the plot veers about, throwing in a few twists and turns...something the shorter pieces can't quite match. The next story, for instance, has Emma investigating a serial killer of prostitutes, and it's a decent but somewhat banal affair. Since it's basically an Emma story, the highly entertaining interplay between her and Simon is missed, and the humour can be awkward when it's maintained even in scenes of Emma visiting the parents of a victim. The final story, featuring a murder during an illusionist's act, provides hints into Simon's background. That last story is drawn by Jeff Johnson -- it's also beautifully realized, but, I'lll admit, lacks some of the striking reality of Guice's work.

But part of my quibbling arises from the whole nature of collected edition trade paperbacks -- usually included under the umbrella title of the "graphic novel". A book like Ruse: Enter the Detective is available in outlets (bookstores) that the monthly comic isn't. And so, it's not unreasonable for a casual reader to expect it to form a true "novel". Although the four-part opening story comes to a close, it ends with Simon MIA -- making it a welcome decision on the part of the editors to include the next story, which sees Simon return. And the final story answers some questions raised in the previous chapters -- all well and good. But it also raises new questions. Not in the sense that the story seems "to be continued" or anything. But it still leaves a certain feeling of dissatisfaction. The initial questions about Emma -- her powers, her secret agenda -- go unanswered (in fact, they're barely alluded to as the chapters progress).

It's a problematic concern. Since this collects six issues of an on-going title, one can't expect everything to be wrapped up neat and tidy here (else the series might have nowhere to go). On the other hand, TPB collections have become so prevalent (to the point where I've heard it suggested that TPBs are actually how the companies make their money, moreso than from the original comics) it might behoove writers to structure their stories bearing in mind that the end result will be a collected volume. At the same time, the following issues have already been collected in two more TPB volumes.

As genuinely fun, as geuninely clever as the story is -- and as genuine as my enthusiasm is -- it''s not quite as smart as you would like it to be. Part of the appeal was the belief that it would all come together, at least somewhat, in the climax. But that doesn't quite happen.

Ruse: Enter the Detective was refreshingly delightful, particularly the initial story arc. Well realized characters, and witty dialogue, mixed with its intentionally evocative milieu, makes for a truly fun read. And I'm certainly encouraged to seek out the duo's further adventures. Which, after all, is no doubt the point of the unresolved sub-plots. It has been collected both as a regular TPB and, for those on a budget, in a smaller, (slightly) cheaper format.

TPB Cover price: $ __ CDN./ $15.95 USA
Digest-sized Traveler Edition: $15.95 CDN./ $9.95 USA.

The Sandman: The Doll's House 1990 (SC TPB) 232 pages

Written by Neil Gaiman. Pencils by Mike Dringenberg, and Chris Bachalo, Michael Zulli. Inks by Malcolm Jones III, with Steve Parkhouse.
Colours: Robbie Busch. Letters: Todd Klein, John Costanza. Editor: Karen Berger.

Reprinting: The Sandman (1980s series) #9-16

Rating: * * * * (out of 5)

Number of readings: 1

Recommended for Mature Readers

Additional notes: intro by Clive Barker and Neil Gaiman; covers

Published by Vertigo/DC Comics

I thought I read somewhere that an earlier edition of this TPB included issue #8 -- perhaps the Doll's House was originally collected before DC decided to collect the entire series starting from issue #1. But I'm not sure about that.

This is the second volume collecting Neil Gaiman's critically acclaimed series. The Sandman -- Morpheus -- is literally the lord of dreams, and one of a pantheon of immortals Gaiman envisions that are neither humans nor gods, but knows as the "endless" -- comprising (among others) Death, Desire and, of course, Dream. The series is unusual in that Gaiman approaches it with a kind of anything goes formula -- ranging from whimsical fantasy, to grisly horror; sometimes Morpheus is little more than a supporting character -- other times, he takes centre stage.

Although this contains a couple of stand alone stories, the body of The Doll's House is one sprawling saga -- albeit, one comprised of various loosely connected threads that form their own stories. Rose Walker is a young woman who, after meeting the grandmother she never knew, is sent off to find her (Rose's) brother who she hasn't seen in years (the kids having been divided during a bitter custody dispute). She takes a room in a Florida boarding house, peopled by eccentric inhabitants, while she tries to find her brother...unaware that he is kept locked in a basement by abusive, distant relatives. That's in our world. On the supernatural level, Morpheus sets out to find some denizens of the Dreaming who escaped to reality during his decades long incarceration (depicted in the first volume, Preludes and Nocturnes, and conveniently recapped in the introduction). As well, a "vortex" is building which, we are told, threatens the Dreaming itself. The stories involving the various escaped Dream creatures intertwine with that of Rose and her search for her brother -- the most fearsome of the escapees being The Corinthian, a nightmare being who has manifested himself as a grisly serial killer.

Along the way, more is gleaned of Morpheus' higher reality, as we meet one or two of his siblings and fellow demi-gods.

Reading the original Sandman TPB, Preludes and Nocturnes, after years of hearing the series' praise, I had mixed reactions to it. I thought it was O.K., but it didn't quite live up to the hype. This second volume is somewhat stronger. Perhaps that is because it's a longer story, allowing it to seem more like a "novel", introducing ideas at the beginning that then, are delivered on by the end. It also benefits from that narrative quirk that, though not unique to comics, is nonetheless more common to them than to other mediums: the idea of shaping a big story out of littler ones. As one story thread ends, it leads us into the next one that is, nonetheless, built on what's gone before. It also allows one to forgive when stories, stretched over a few issues, resolve rather simply (because Morpheus is pretty well all-powerful). You can forgive it because each story seems like only part of a greater whole.

Gaiman has a good sense of telling a scene, crafting interesting, largely plausible dialogue and quirky situations. He has to juggle the "reality" of the human characters (even as they find themselves in decidedly unusual situations) with the strange, esoteric existence of Morpheus and his brethren -- a separate, surreal reality that, nonetheless, must adhere to its own fictional coherence.

The art, largely by Mike Dringenberg, is effective at capturing both, with a loose, scratchy, but still believable style. The guest artists on a couple of issues are also mostly effective.

The Sandman doesn't really settle on one tone or mood or genre from issue to issue, but it is often a horror series. I say that because in my review of Preludes and Nocturnes I criticize Gaiman's violence, and suggest that it's curious how series like The Sandman, we are told, are more mature, more sophisticated, than crass super hero comics...and yet they seem to revel in their violence even more. But recognizing that this is meant to be horror (at least at times) perhaps mutes my argument. Gaiman isn't trying to present a "realistic" series, dealing seriously with violence and its repercussions...it's as much fantasy and fiction as any men-in-tights adventure. A mid-story sequence -- and a double-sized issue -- that takes place at a convention of serial killers is not, really, meant to be taken at face value (I don't suppose Gaiman really thinks there are such things, nor that there actually are enough serial killers in America to attend one). But what it is meant to be is, at once, creepy and also darkly satirical as Rose and a friend innocently take rooms for the night while the convention is going on, having no idea what a "Cereal Convention" entails.

Although the series overall is something that generally makes the list of "if you don't like comics, you might still like this", Gaiman still ties it in with DC Comics continuity. Not in a way that, perhaps, renders the thing incoherent for a general reader, but in a way that might make things a bit confusing here and there. In the 1970s, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby created a costumed super hero, The Sandman, who lived in the world of dreams. Here, Gaiman tries to work that earlier version into one of his story lines, but it can leave you a bit bewildered about the details (particularly when this isn't that Sandman, but a successor, Hector Hall...and I had to go on-line to figure out who he was). Indeed, the little boy in this story, Jed, was apparently a character from that 1970s comic (and joins the list of modern era stories that give gritty, unpleasant spins to old, kinder, gentler stories).

Gaiman (and artist Gringenberg) also work in some pop references, like depicting Jed's dreams in a manner that is a homage to the classic early 20th Century comic strip, Little Nemo in Slumberland, by Winsor McKay.

The stand alone stories are effective. The opening one, as an African tribesman relates a fable (about Morpheus), shows just how diverse are the stories Gaiman intends to tell in this series. As does the other tale, for that matter. It's inserted in the middle of The Doll's House saga (perhaps Gringenberg was having trouble meeting the deadlines, so Gaiman and guest artist Mike Zulli threw this in to give him a break). It tells a tale of how Death decides to grant a man his wish of immortality, and Morpheus, curious, meets with him every hundred years to see how he's getting along. Neither are horror, which relates to my point about the variety of material Gaiman engages in.

I'm still not an uncritical convert to The Sandman, but I did enjoy this and consider it a solid read, and am even more inclined to read further volumes (granted, I got it from the library, so it cost me nothing). Well written at times, and twisty in its narrative threads, the very length of the saga, following the various intertwining story threads, keeps one turning pages. And Morpheus himself is a problematic hero, at times portrayed as moral, and noble, at other times, more mercurial and pragmatic, so that you can't always like the guy.

Still, this more clearly establishes why the series is so well regarded.

Cover price: $32.95 CDN./ $19.95 USA.