In this week’s Wednesday Comics column, call us everyone because we love Everyone Loves a Jewel Thief #1, a quick peak at a quiet comic with GI Joe A Real American Hero Sssilent Missions Crimson Guard, and more! Plus, The Prog Report!
Everyone Loves a Jewel Thief #1
Writer: Aaron Campbell and Tim Seeley
Art: Aaron Campbell
Colors: Jordie Bellaire
Letters: AndWorld Design
Publisher: Ignition Press
Review by Clyde Hall
Early aspiration so often gives way to ennui assignation. Such bittersweet resignations are relatable, and even those of us who attain success levels we only dreamt of as kids may find them sadly underwhelming once achieved. Never mind the majority who, once confronted by adult realities, settle for what they can get prospects-wise.
This sentiment is the pulse of Everyone Loves a Jewel Thief in its first issue, its spirit transcending page and panel to hit us where we live. As well as where we once lived, and witnessing the chasm that time’s trenched between both. But appreciating how well writers Aaron Campbell and Tim Seeley have captured this tone is best accomplished by first reading last month’s Everyone Loves a Jewel Thief: Cold Open #0.
Because in Cold Open we have a 1989 fellowship of tabletop RPG players settling into their D&D campaign roles, into their group dynamics. And in some cases, voicing hope for what their futures hold. As well as fallbacks just in case those years ahead disappoint.
Fast-forward to now, and a meeting between DM Andy and VIP thief of the party Chad, now going by C. Scott Frederickson professionally. Because Chad’s become a published writer, just like he dreamed. But not nearly as successful as he planned, a writer with sales early on enough that he settled for a position teaching college-level creative writing in Madison, Wisconsin. Not the Michael Crighton status he’d hoped for, but one thanks to his newest historical fiction novel is set to change. For the worse. Because publishers have rejected his manuscript, his agent is ghosting him, and the college is looking for a new professor with more recent publishing credentials.
Desperate days call for desperate alternatives to those long-ago life plans. Luckily, Chad once outlined for Andy a backup plan in those tabletop days. One today’s fickle fortunes for those RPGers have made tenable. Attractive, even.
They’ve played dungeon-divers adept at breaking into a guarded sanctum and stealing priceless items. What if they got the group back together for a real-life heist? A major haul of such monetary value that huddled masses of cubicle drones and wage slaves admire the master thieves so much…they’d buy a book written about it. Because if The Thomas Crown Affair and To Catch a Thief taught us anything, it’s that everyone loves a jewel thief. And where David Niven’s concerned, so did The Pink Panther.
Everyone except the cops, which goes without saying. And as the issue gets into full swing, it’s apparent that there’s a learning curve between being teenaged tabletop D&D thieves and successful burglars. That’s driven home by the way some party members are absent while others are sporting casts and signs of severe head trauma, all while enjoying accommodations provided by the Madison city guard. As detectives conduct interviews, we learn how the group and the plans came together and, as the 5-issue limited series continues, how it all fell apart. Including a last page reveal of next level skullduggery.
Campbell and Seeley do a fine job sowing the seeds of who the teen gamers were and then delivering the opportunely drought-ridden grownups they’ve bloomed into. There’s more humor than pathos, and despite the situations the characters navigate, the writing team never loses track of the gaming table spirit the players once shared. The jibes, the smirks, the smartass comments only best friends can share without throwing hands. Dice maybe, but no hands.
In the Cold Open #0, they also craft a mirror of how their gaming sessions went, reflected now against their criminal career progress. The potential for foreshadowing, plot twists, or both is excellent, a great way of hooking readers early and keeping them invested.
The flashbacks are an essential part of the unfolding, and not only do the writers make it work near flawlessly, Campbell’s art enhanced by Jordie Bellaire’s colors seal the deal. You can smell the basement damp and open chip bags around the young gaming group back in the day thanks to their visuals. You feel the sterile, civilized, and mundane interests of academia in Chad’s modern setting by contrast. Near the end, there is a panel set that lands beautifully. One of D&D characters surrounded with bard song in a rustic inn, and of their grownup players in a seamy Madison dive bar plotting their real-life crimes.
The concept is lined out well between the Cold Open intro issue and this premiere of Everyone Loves a Jewel Thief. Again, I highly suggest reading both and in order. A few pages are repeated between the issues, but it’s worth the cost for giving readers the full experience of what this creative team’s delivered. It’s comparable with Stranger Things where otherworldly Upside Down threats are replaced by the dangers of living in a Right-Side Up unworthy of our youthful hopes and ambitions. Or living up to what, deep down, even those kids around a gaming table feared their real futures held. It’s a heist story with one jeweled sandal in imagined worlds of hellhounds and hook horrors, and one prison loafer in holding cells with homies. It’s also the latest example of Ignition Press setting new, ever more creative levels of storytelling in their titles. Pick this one up, especially if you’re a gaming group veteran or heist fiction fan.
G.I. Joe A Real American Hero: SSSilent Missions: Crimson Guard #1
Writer / Artist: Gabriel Hardman
Colorist: Matt Hollingsworth
Publisher: Image Comics
Review by Jared Bird
What if you had the most important, and yet most thankless, job in the entirety of Cobra’s mighty arsenal of troops? That’s the central focus of Sssilent Missions: Crimson Guard #1, the latest wordless one-shot focusing on the villains of the G.I. Joe universe in a month-long event, with a story by the fantastic Gabriel Hardman.
As Cobra Command is overrun in an all-out assault by the Joes, one of Cobra Commander’s elite Crimson Guards rises to the challenge, attempting to save his commander and protect him no matter the cost. Battling through countless soldiers, inescapable disasters, and insurmountable odds, one man tries his best to do what he can. It’s a brilliant hook for a one-shot story, exploring the perspective of a thankless ‘grunt’ soldier, who often exist solely for cannon-fodder in any narrative like this. Hardman humanises him well, giving him just enough of a visible face underneath his broken mask to massively aid the reader in emotionally connecting with a nameless protagonist. It’s a lot of fun too, with a bombastic and energetic pace that never lets up at any point across the two-dozen pages of the narrative.
Gabriel Hardman’s artwork is absolutely beautiful, creating a gritty and realistic atmosphere for the story that works well in tandem with the grounded narrative. He’s got a great sense of panel layout and dynamism, with each page managing to make the most of its length, meaning that the story covers a lot more ground than one might expect. It’s hard to convey character without text, but Hardman infuses both our protagonist and the heinous Cobra Commander with compelling, essential characteristics, backed up by great action sequences that really allow the art to shine. There’s one sequence towards the middle of the book that’s just astonishing, a great usage of action techniques to craft an epic-feeling siege.
Overall, SSSilent Missions: Crimson Guard #1 is a delightful surprise, one of the strongest entries yet in Image Comics’ Silent Missions events, crafting a compelling wordless narrative by emphasizing character in tandem with the explosive action one might expect. It’s got some genuinely fantastic moments, using its interesting premise well, and is wonderfully crafted by Gabriel Hardman in a brilliant artistic showing from him as a creator.
Estuary – A Ghost Story #1
Writers: DB Andry and Tim Daniel
Artist: Maan House
Colorist: Steve Cannon
Letterer: Taylor Esposito
Publisher: Oni Press
Review by Zack Quaintance
Estuary #1 is one of the moodiest (complimentary) horror comics I’ve read in years. It sweeps up a lot of great ingredients — from its Northern California setting to historical Catholic missions-turned-influencer experiences to a flirty meeting at sea — and comes out the other side with a restrained, deeply chilling first issue.
The book is illustrated by Maan House with colors by Steve Cannon, and they serve up a largely silent first sequence that makes a Pacific Ocean sunset ominous and creepy, which is not an obvious choice at all — and I love it for that. It’s just such a great tone-setter for all that is to come. House is as skilled of a horror artist as there is in comics, and Cannon colors his work with a perfect brooding palette. There’s something stark and lonely in the way the duo depict the Northern California scenery here, and it does wonders for the ambiance of the book, right from the jump. It’s also all augment perfectly by the lettering of Taylor Esposito, which is restrained in the same way the book is, making perfect complimentary choices throughout.
The script from the writing duo of DB Andry and Tim Daniel is also perhaps their best yet. I’m a big fan of their regular collaboration, especially when they go dark and ominous and isolated with their locale (their forest-set book, Morning Star, is one I especially recommend). With Estuary, the scripting is spare and efficient, and it’s also versatile, as capable of giving us a bouncy mission tour with yoga on one page as it is exploring a crisis of faith on the next.
But really I think it’s the setting that is used best by the entire creative team. Distinct settings are elements I’m very much partial to in my horror comics. As noted, the book is set in Northern California, in a remote area along the coast, and the script incorporates both the loneliness of the nature there as well as the history of missionary settlements and the current day of social media domination. It’s all used just enough, making the story immersive and intriguing and mysterious and understated.
At one point, a character says “Brunch cruises in the Bay, certified Pilates-instructing nuns, midnight ghost tours…it’s wild.”, and I thought, you know, that just might make for the best possible solicit copy for this book. The characters in the book are also born of the setting. They are boat tour influencers and highly-educated marine archeologist and enterprising nuns. I’ve spent time in Northern California, having lived there for three years, and there’s just such a natural feeling to everything done in Estuary, a smoothness to the comic that makes it very easy to get into.
But, of course, this is a horror comic too, and so it needs to bring the scares. And while I won’t spoil that, if you (like me) think the ocean is creepy as hell, this book is going to get you and get you good. It’s just such a fantastic start, the type of first issue that made me go online and look up when part two is out (sadly, not until May!).
Finally, I want to note here that this book is edited by Bess Pallares, and while editors are often the least-sung heroes in comics, I wanted to note that Pallares has been cultivating some of the best titles in comics in the past few years, especially when it comes to dark and spooky stuff. From Out of Alcatraz to High Strangeness, there’s a clarity of vision in the titles that Pallares works on, and Estuary is just the latest in a great streak.
Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theatre Presents Romeo & Juliet & Godzilla #1
Writer: Adam Tierney
Artist: Sean Peacock
Letterer: Brian Kolek
Back-Up: Tom Scioli
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Review by Tim Rooney
Who would have guessed that Japan’s preeminent monster could be so flexible to work in any setting at all? Sure, the kaiju king has been in dozens of films in genres ranging from parenting sitcom to existential drama … but Shakespeare?
Here, Godzilla is dropped smack-dab into the middle of literary classic Romeo and Juliet, in what first seems little more than silly background noise that does nothing much to change or derail the story itself. Throughout the tale of star crossed lovers, Godzilla and Mothra battle it out with one another as well as the mad king Capulet, piloting a wooden steampunk Mecha-Godzilla.
On first read it’s hard to parse what, if any, narrative addition Godzilla smashing through Verona and squashing Tybalt adds to the affair other than the humor of the juxtaposition of Shakespeare and monsters. But on second read, it is impossible to ignore the King’s mad obsession, elevating the arbitrary tragedy of the family war between Montague and Capulet that defines the original play. The arbitrary nature of hate and violence of previous generations and the toll the youngest pay is made even more absurd amidst the kaiju battles.
Beyond all that, Sean Peacock’s art and Adam Tierney’s breezy condensing of the original play into a few dozen pages made me imagine how delightful straight comic book adaptations of Shakepseare plays could be. Peacock’s gritty, aged design (with assistance from letterer and designer Brian Kolek) adds a throwback element well suited for the classic text.
And backing up the main feature is a short first chapter of a Godzilla/Robin Hood meeting by Tom Scioli. Like all Scioli’s work it’s stylish and fun. The quick hit of action and story ending with a hint of more to come in the next serialized chapter makes this backup feel like an old school newspaper strip in the best way. More than anything this issue shows that we simply must put Godzilla in anything everything, he works in all situations.
Neighborhood Watch #1
Writer: Sarah Gailey
Artist: Haining
Colorist: Rebecca Nalty
Letterer: Jodie Troutman
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
Review by Khalid Johnson
Sarah Gailey wrote one of my favorite books of all time with Eat the Rich, and so, in her pen I trust now as she tells a tale off two communities with a murder between them in this week’s series debut, Neighborhood Watch #1.
The atmosphere of this comic is rich with relationships and characters with internal lives, which is to say the world feels real as we bounce between the two locations, Willow Haven and the Open Arms Intentional Collective. These are two settings that are as different as you would think (or are they?).
And the team is operating with such synergy because every strength of this first issue is increased by the other, as Haining’s art with beautiful colors by Rebecca Nalty and letters by Jodie Troutman captures the different vibes of these communities, in aesthetic both in what you would expect someone proudly in an HOA to look like and what you would expect someone in a collective to look like (ahem cool as hell). Details, like the paneling which juxtapose the locations across the pages which we see parallel to each other build the connections between these two worlds until this amazing moment where the worlds meet and wow, how it was illustrated had my eyes wide.
I was unsure of how I initially felt with the colored gutters literally until the moment the worlds collide. This team cooked with Neighborhood Watch #1, and I couldn’t be more excited to see how the story unfolds.
Transformers #31
Writer: Robert Kirkman
Artist: Ludo Lullabi
Colorist: Mike Spicer
Letterer: Rus Wooton
Publisher: Image Comics – Skybound
Review by Jordan Jennings
Convulsing and incapacitated, Megatron faces down the overwhelming power behind the Matrix of Oppression as the latest arc of Kirkman’s Transformers kicks-off with Transformers #31.
Kirkman’s penchant for writing fast moving action is well on display here as we are quickly dropped in media res, with no explanation or respite, to Megatron’s conflict with the Matrix of Oppression’s corrupting influence. This creative decision is an interesting one. While it does create a sense of momentum on the first page, it is not exactly a great jumping on point for people who may have missed out on Robert Kirkman’s first arc. Though, there is a case to be made that new readers are less likely to jump on a book at issue #31.
Either way these concerns are for naught as Kirkman manages to make the plunge into the deep-end of Decepticon lore feel very energetic and constantly moving forward. Kirkman manages to keep the action going through what is largely an introspective piece about Megatron and the Decepticon leadership. Kirkman’s best talent is managing a comic’s overall story pacing. I have never been too high on his dialog and character work at times, but Kirkman has a real knack for page turners. You find yourself reading to see what comes next and that that’s no easy feat.
The visual display of Megatron’s internal conflict with the Matrix makes for a compelling read. The art by Ludo Lullabi is well-executed in its insurmountable task of conveying Megatron’s surreal trials. While the imagery and page construction is very much in line with Skybound’s Energon Universe, the absurdity pops through the house style. I really appreciate Lullabi’s expression work here. A great effort went into making Megatron show so much emotion through body language and Lullabi was very successful in this effort. The way Lullabi is able to have Megatron show fear, dread, defiance, arrogance, anger, and ultimately resignation in his fate complements Kirkman’s script perfectly. I also want to give a shout out to Mike Spicer’s colors. The coloring in Transformers has been one of the most consistent throughlines between the various artists on the book these past 31 issues and it’s always phenomenal. It really helps bring texture and form to the rudimentary shapes of the Transformers’ Generation 1 character designs.
Overall, Transformers #31 is a solid and enjoyable start to the new arc. New and Lapsed readers may be a bit perplexed by what’s going on at the beginning of the issue, but the creative team keeps the momentum moving so that you will find yourself not worrying about what has happened and instead wanting to see what will happen.
The Prog Report
- 2000AD 2477 (Rebellion): Maybe I was just in a good mood when I read this comic, but I felt like this week’s mag was firing on all cylinders, capturing many of the things that have made me such a fan of it. First things first, I will admit that the opening to the new Dredd tale last week didn’t quite hook me. I will also admit that I was wrong. In this week’s strip, we get to see just a bit more of what’s really going on here, and that extra bit of orientation does wonders. Where I was a little cold before, I’m now all in on this one, which is Judge Dredd: Flames & White Phosphorus, by writer T.C. Eglington, artist Paul Marshall, colorist Quinton Winter, and letterer Annie Parkhouse. The real headliner is the story on the cover: the return of Silver, with Silver Book Three: Malignant by writer Mike Carroll, artist Joe Currie, and letterer Simon Bowland. For me there is no bad Silver, a 90s-set twisty vampire war comic that doesn’t care if you can’t figure it out. I love it, and this week’s opener was a great first chapter, almost grounded before landing on a typically bonkers story development in its final panel. Rounding out the things I really liked this week was a new Future Shocks, titled Clean Slate by writer Liam Johnson, artist Lucas McCoy, and Rob Steen. I think Future Shocks are at their best when they feel like an abbreviated episode of The Twilight Zone, and that was certainly what we got from this tale, a riff on erasing the mistakes of your past, explored via a company that takes embarrassing things you did off the Internet. It’s a layered and thoughtful short, and I dug it. This week’s cover (above) is by Joe Currie. As always, you can pick up a digital copy of The Prog here. —Zack Quaintance
Column edited by Zack Quaintance.
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