Shade #12; James Robinson & Gene Ha

The Shade is a twelve issue series, published by DC Comics, that just concluded with an issue written by the series' writer, James Robinson and drawn by Gene Ha. anyone who has read James Robinson's epic Starman comic, now collected in six omnibus editions by DC, were very much looking forward to this Shade maxi-series, as Shade was one of the central characters of that series. As with Starman, with the main artistry of Tony Harris and Peter Snejbjerg, this Shade series also had excellent art by some of the mediums best, such as Darywn Cooke, Jill Thompson, Jarvier Pulido, and Frazer Irving. Shade #12, featured the art of Gene Ha and as you can tell from this title page above, he was the perfect choice to conclude this series with James Robinson. If you're not already familiar with Starman or the Shade, I'm just going to say that James Robinson and his stellar artist collaborators, comics with said characters, is the very definition of EPIC, beautiful sequential art storytelling.

Do yourself a favor and get the Starman collections, the Shade maxi-series, and or the Shade collection when it arrives! And Las Vegas has two treats in store for them relating to this comic, specifically Shade #12, with artist Gene Ha being the top billed guest of honor at this year's Vegas Valley Comic Festival at the Clark County Library, Saturday, November 3rd, and writer James Robinson, will be one of Alternate Reality Comics' special guests Sunday, October 21st (more details on this last tidbit very soon)!!

Fashion Beast #1; And now for something completely different...

This week, the first issue of Avatar's ten issue adaptation of Alan Moore and Malcolm McClaren's screenplay for a movie that never happened, Fashion Beast, arrived, illustrated by Facundo Percio. Moore and McClaren (manager of the Sex Pistols) wrote Fashion Beast in the early / mid 1980s, but as Antony Johnson's adaptation shows, even with just this first issue, Fashion Beast looks to be one of Alan Moore's finest creations.

Wizzywig; Ed Piskor

Another great graphic novel that was released a few months ago that I finally got around to reading (working on lots of behind the scenes things for upcoming events here in the Las Vegas comic commmunity and the store) is Ed Piskor's Wizzywig, published by Top Shelf. Wizzywig is based on nine real real-life computer hackers, with the central character, Kevin "Boingthump" Phenicle, being a conglomerate of "adventures" those nine hackers actually had.

Ed Piskor's Wizzywig, is a thoroughly engrossing, entertaining graphic novel (300 pages, only $19.95, for another beautifully designed Top Shelf production) that will have you alternating between cheering on the protaginist as he gets away with his hacking schemes and cheering on the law as they catch up to him (depending on how you feel about free acess to information and or how annoyed you become when you end up with a computer virus). You may even learn a thing or twelve, such as the latter section of Wizzywig, in which Kevin, the hacker, now in prison, tells you how you can wash your clothes in the toliet (line the toliet with a trash liner and fill it with sink water) or how you can cook ramen noodles and light your cigarettes with an electrical wire (gplugging it in, but avoid touching the exposed end part of the wire).