In a land of talking chainmail, the woman with the talkiest chainmail is queen. Probably — in Immortal Red Sonja #1, written by Dan Abnett, drawn by Alessandro Miracolo, colored by Ellie Wright, lettered by Jeff Eckleberry and published by Dynamite.
It’s a quiet night in the ‘burbs … until your dad’s goon squad hauls you back to the nightmare town you’re from in A Town Called Terror #1, written by Steve Niles, drawn by Szymon Kudranski, lettered by Scott O. Brown and published by Image.
The issue in which one kid drinks a juice box … and by “juice box” we mean a “human throat.” Little Monsters #2, written by Jeff Lemire, drawn by Dustin Nguyen, lettered by Steve Wands and published by Image.
Will Nevin: Did you know that the legend of King Arthur and his associated cast of characters — Merlin, Sir Lancelot, Guinevere and the rest — are just that: legend? I’m definitely not an idiot who just learned that in the last, like, couple of years.
Ian Gregory: In Middle School, I did a project for National History Day on King Arthur (second place at Regionals, baby). So I can safely say that I have known that King Arthur et al. were a mythic construction since your second year of law school.
Will: What have I ever fuckin’ done to you?
[Grote’s note: What the hell are Regionals?]
Immortal Red Sonja #1: We Read a Red Sonja
Will: In our intense production meetings, you argued quite passionately that we should cover this book even though neither of us has ever read a Red Sonja. What gives, Ian?
Ian: Let me see if I can dig up our chat logs. I believe it went something like “Hey, I’ve never read Red Sonja, and I kind of want to know what the deal is.” I’m not sure I’d call that a passionate argument. I also admit to wanting to see what Dan Abnett would do with the book; he’s a purebred 2000 AD guy who’s also bounced around on pretty much all the major franchises.
Will: One person’s mild interest is another’s passionate argument. Who’s to say which one of us is right? Now, I’ve already admitted to knowing absolutely nothing about the character — I’m not sure I had any concept of Sonja aside from the typical skin mag, cover girl, male gaze feel I always get from looking at Dynamite covers — but I was surprised that what we have here is not that different from what the character has always been as an armor-clad swords ’n’ sorcery ass kicker. Is the big change with this series that we’re adding her into the Arthurian canon, or did I not understand what’s going on here?
Ian: Well, as established, I can’t really answer that question as we have equivalent (that is to say, no) Red Sonja bonafides. Who really knows what the deal is with her lore — she’s bounced around between companies and owners long enough that I doubt anyone has a real handle on it, and she’s originally based on a Robert E. Howard character. It seems to me like the Arthurian stuff is simply a new setting or realm to conquer.
Red Sonja is probably best known for the chainmail bikini, though in this issue she’s rocking more of a chainmail crop top and a very sensible pair of pants (not depicted on the cover). In fact, the contrast between the cover art and the interiors was pretty stark: I really liked Alessandro Miracolo’s pencils, especially on the title page with its AD&D module title drop. Ellie Wright’s colors are great, too; I like the kind of haze keeping everything subdued, another way of making the issue feel legendary, or mythic.
Will: Final admission here: I typically don’t go for the genre — not this, nor Conan, nor anything else with a dragon or a magic suit of armor or anything else of the sort. (This includes Game of Thrones. Yes, I have never seen it. No, I am not interested in starting it now.) But I didn’t hate this? And I wouldn’t hate you if you suggested we read #2. But I would ask that you keep your next production meeting tirade on what we should cover to under 45 minutes.
Ian: I’ve sort of fallen out of fantasy over the years, and I never really went in for Conan either, but I really liked this issue. Maybe the appeal of Red Sonja is that it’s pure, recognizable fantasy: I kind of like the simplicity, and how there’s no real gimmick. Just strong storytelling in this issue.
Will: Even though you’ve hurt me deeply, I can’t disagree here — there’s an alluring simplicity in this issue.
A Town Called Terror #1: Scary, but Also Boring?
Will: For me, this book is all vibes — the colors, the layouts, the horror motifs. And the central idea of a guy being abducted and taken back to his hometown (a place off the map and just for monsters) is not a bad one. But not enough happened in the narrative to really interest me. What was your take here?
Ian: I got to the end of this issue and thought I was halfway through. Far be it from me to start talking about all them fancy comics terms like decompression, but I feel like we read the pitch for a comic, not the actual first issue. In any case, sure, the vibes are nice, but if you’re talking about a town of monsters all I’m going to think is Halloweentown, which isn’t exactly peak horror fare. I need a little more out of these characters than “my dad’s a jerk and I don’t want to see him.” The horror trappings aren’t quite covering for the thinness of the characters.
Will: You ever read Winnebago Graveyard? It’s another Niles book (this one with artist Alison Sampson), but to my memory, it gets to the point much quicker. Although that could be me looking back on its entirety with fuzzy blood-colored glasses. And for the record, Ian, I don’t think your dad’s a jerk.
Ian: I haven’t, but I took a look just for you (Hear that, readers, you’re getting a 4-for-1 special this week). It feels extremely similar on its face, down to the narrative captions about the state of evil, but you’re right that it gets moving much quicker. I can’t help but wonder if the horror comic market is becoming oversaturated. It must be the second-most popular genre in comics (followed, I suspect, by crime), and as a result it’s taking more and more for me to get invested in the first issue.
Will: The readers thank you for your service, Ian. Now I want to go back to Winnebago Graveyard m’self. But, yes, back to A Town Called Terror — it’s a pretty book. It’s a moody book. But this was caught in the netherrealm between #0 and #1 for me. Still, I think if we check back in on this, #2 might turn out to be something good.
Ian: It’s possible this one just needs a little more space on the runway. I’ll definitely check out #2, but with only lukewarm anticipation.
Little Monsters #2: When Your Tykes Break Bad
Will: So I promise this is not a cheap plug for BatChat, the Batman podcast I co-host here at ComicsXF with Matt Lazorwitz, but I just finished reading the third chapter of the Batman: Vampire trilogy, Crimson Mist, for the show, so I’ve got vamps on the brain — specifically the moral price that comes with feeding on sweet sticky neck juice. And good lord, do we see that in Crimson Mist, a story in which Batman has been fully corrupted and transformed into a blood-thirsty (ahha!) monster.
And that’s what I liked in this second issue. Instead of continuing to see these vampire kids play in an empty, dead world, we get an escalation in the form of a challenge: What do they do when dinner shows up at their door? One, Romie, hides. The other, Billy, feeds and says they’ve been lied to. I loved the moral dilemma, and I loved the different reactions we saw between the kids, which I’m sure will continue in the next couple of issues.
Tl;dr, Ian, this was good shit.
Ian: It’s always been a bit of a soft spot in vampire lore as to whether they need blood to survive. In the old Balkan folklore (which I totally foreshadowed in our review of last week’s vampire story), the act of blood-drinking is relatively uncommon. Another key feature seen in this issue, the conversion to a vampire via a bite, was present but extremely rare. So here we have a bunch of kids surviving in a ruined city all without drinking blood — they clearly don’t need the blood to survive. This is a great little dilemma for these characters, who are still clearly kids despite in some cases being hundreds of years old. It’s youthful rebellion, delayed a few centuries.
Will: Aside from some confusing perspective in spots, I thought the art continues to be exceptionally strong in this book because, again, I am a mark for spot color. Anything stand out to you visually in this issue?
Ian: I really like the expression on Billy after he has his first drink of blood, and the spattering of blood around his mouth. It’s a rapturous look, one that conveys both the pleasure of drinking blood, and also implies it carries some sort of mind-altering state, making him appear to be less of a kid.
Will: That was some great work with Billy, absolutely. Finally, what did you think of the reveal at the end? I liked it — because it gets us out of the moral quandary of some big, bad tough guy killing the intellectual equivalent of children — but I wonder if it’s setting us up for a shorter series. (I could check solicits or other announcements about how long this thing is going to be … but that sounds like work.) What did you think of what that last page or two means for this book?
Ian: I can’t help but think that this group is going to self-destruct, and that we’ve met all of the characters in the series. What’s left is to watch them fall apart. After all the work spent introducing each kid individually in the first issue, I hope this stays close to the group and really gets into their vampire-kid-clan dynamic. I think it’s about to get all Lord in the Flies in this book, Will.
Will: As a great man once said, “Fuck them kids.”
Does This Smell OK?
- I did listen to the Bach Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major during the body reconstruction sequence in A Town Called Terror. I cannot say it enhanced the experience significantly.
- Take your chances with this quiz about other men in history who may or may not have existed.
- Turning your leftover Easter eggs into … chocolate chunk cookies? I mean, I’ve heard of crazier things.
- If you want something more boring, here’s a list of 36 ideas for what to do with your extra hard-boiled eggs. Spoiler: It’s a lot of chicken/tuna/potato salad.
- Easter Rocky Road sounds like a better bet.
- Those leftover Easter eggs are good for up to seven days … assuming they were refrigerated within two hours of cooking and not left out for more than two hours. So let’s be honest: You’re taking your chances there.
Will Nevin loves bourbon and AP style and gets paid to teach one of those things. He is on Twitter far too often.
Ian Gregory is a writer and co-host of giant robots podcast Mech Ado About Nothing.
