Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened
Villard
Editor Jason Rodriguez assembles 15 creative teams and hands them each an old postcard, asking them to extrapolate a short, fictional story based on the much shorter, true words written on it.
As intriguing as the idea is, and as talented as the contributors are, there’s something writers’ workshop-esque about the endeavor, as if it were an exercise in a college creative writing class that only made it into book form on the strength of the graphic novel format.
The obsolescence of postcards (referred to at one point as “turn-of-the-century text messages”) necessitates a certain setting, with many of the stories taking place in the first decade of the 20th century, although there’s a surprising amount of variety from story to story.
Contributors include Michael Gaydos, Tom Beland, Rick Spears and Rob G, though the best of the bunch seem to come from writer/artists Phillip Hester, who goes from the mundane to the metaphysical based on a mention of Easter on a card, and Harvey Pekar, Joyce Brabner and Matt Kindt, who cheat on the formula a bit.
Since Pekar and Brabner met via postcard, went on to marry and produce a slew of autobio comics and graphic novels, theirs is a true story that actually did happen. Their “Story of a Marriage” recounts their life together through Kindt’s silent images, and the occasional text from a postcard or piece of mail adding context.
Monster Attack Network
AiT/Planet Lar
Nate Klinger is the chief of the Monster Attack Network, a highly trained team of first-responders who specialize in evacuation and rescue in the face of giant monster attacks, which happen more frequently on the island of Lapuatu than in the Toho film company’s catalog.
You’ll notice Monster Attack Network acronyms quite nicely into MAN, and that’s just what Nate is—a manly, all-man, man of a man. Built like a barrel-chested Bruce Timm superhero design, this two-fisted man of action may be the star of co-writers Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman’s debut graphic novel, but the book itself isn’t about manliness as much as monsterliness.
The creators, and the characters, love their giant monsters, and the philosophy of MAN is that monsters are something to adjust to, not hunt down and kill—“No different than California,” Nate says of the monsters. “Their palm trees come with earthquakes and fires.”
Lapuatu’s palm trees come with a Godzilla-like Gygax, a giant slug monster, a giant Rodan-like bat, a giant octopus and more, and the arrival of a mysterious woman and a sinister industrialist escalates the MAN vs. monster dynamic into an all-out-war.
It’s a little like a half-dozen Japanese kaiju flicks, with all the boring (i.e. non-monster) scenes cut out, and the rubber monster suits replaced with state-of-the-art special effects. Only better.
Madman Gargantua
Image Comics
They weren’t exaggerating with the title. This collection of Frank “Madman” Einstein’s early adventures is gargantuan in every way.
There are a lot of comics in it, over 850 pages including Madman, Madman Comics, Madman Adventures and the Madman Super King-Size Groovy Special (writer/artist Mike Allred has a gift for titles). Its dimensions are gargantuan, making it one of the tallest, widest and heaviest graphic novels on the shelves. Its price tag is gargantuan, running you $125.
And, of course, Allred’s a gargantuan talent. His not-really-a-superhero superhero Frank “Madman” Einstein is his most famous creation, an undead everyman in a snazzy costume who uses a yo-yo to keep Snap City free of mutant beatniks. As the adventures continue, more and more attention is focused on Frank’s relationship with his girlfriend Jo and the extended family they’ve formed of mad scientists, aliens and androids.
Allred is probably one of the best artists working in comics today; his drawings are clean, smooth and well-composed, betraying no sign that they were even drawn. Every panel of Allred’s comics seems to have sprung fully-formed into existence. This particular book probably isn’t the best introduction to Allred and Madman, being a feast instead of a taste, but it should definitely satiate fans.