Habitat

Human evolutionary divergence in a time ship… 

Simon Roy drawing Stone Age tribesfolk, futuristic supersoldiers, exoskeleton battle armor, and, of course, crystalline structures. 

💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎/10

PS-Simon Roy is a delight in person

Magnus: Robot Fighter

If this comic doesn't get a little smile out of you, I understand. At first look Magnus comes across as a goofy, dated, sexist, off-brand, candy-assed, confused excuse for a superhero comic, all subsequent looks would also give that impression because "Magnus: Robot Fighter" is all those things.    

The thing that makes it worthwhile is the character design and city/landscapes have a retro-futurism that is absolutely engaging and creative. Magnus is a good example of how speculative fiction from the predigital era can have a uniquely unhinged idea of what technology will look like and how it will change the way we live. The ways the Magnus comic succeeds makes all the faults endearing. 

The premise is that future humans have become overly dependent on robots and Magnus (normal human) has to karate chop through metal to balance the scales. Any mention of this comic has to address Magnus’ outfit. His outfit is so futuristic is hard to put into words: he wears a crimson, sequined, miniskirted (whose length is really pushing boundaries) onesie. If Zap Brannigans outfit isn’t based on Magnus I’d be absolutely shocked.

👚👚👚👚👚👚👚👚👚👚/10

Garden

Reading “Garden” is strangely meditative or hypnotic. As with most of this mangakas books “Garden” follows a group of deadpan investigators as they comment matter of factly about the landscape and have brusque, cagey conversations with strangers. The calling cards of this artist are loooong terraforming scenes, the construction of modular buildings, looooong battle scenes where the POV is constantly changing, huge repetitive onomatopoeias, groups of laconic travelers each with unique and ridiculous outfits (but always the same build), and no context for anything ever. All of this combines into a strange manga both much better and exactly as bad as it sounds.

🏞🏞🏞🏞🏞🏞🏞🏞🏞🏞/10

PS- I forget the authors name 

Drifting Classroom

The premise: a middle school is isolated from reality, all that's outside the school grounds are creepy sand dunes as far as the eye can see. The stress brings out the worst in the student's caretakers. Lunch ladies grind children up for food, a math teacher stalks and kills students like an animal, children wander into the sandy void driven mad by fear. The main character is trying to keep his classmates safe while dealing with an hysterical mob, betrayal within his own ranks, and other grades viciously competing for resources and control. "Lord of the Flies" and "Battle Royal" are kind of similar but this has the added horror of trusted caretakers turning on their charges.

The art, while not elaborate,(I misremembered this, the art is, in fact, great. Take a look at page 128 in the big hardcover and be amazed. Edit 10/11/21) does a great job of communicating the horror through facial expressions ala Junji Ito. And, there's plenty of creative violence and shock value. Ito has a book called "The Dissolving Classroom," which I haven't read, but assume its an homage (my assumption was wrong. Edit 10/11/21).  

⏳⏳⏳⏳⏳⏳⏳⏳⏳⏳/10

PS-I misremembered this comic pretty grievously but it’s worth reading

Cat eyed boy

"Cat-eyed Boy" pulls out every imaginable stop concerning the odd things that make older manga interesting. The protagonist is never pinned as a hero or villain, narrator or subject. From one story to the next the Cat-eyed Boy in question is helping free villagers from curses, protecting them from homicidal mutants, saving children from abusive families, hiding in attics gleefully narrating as a family is killed by crab monsters or taken one-by-one by a sentient ball of hair, stealing from or cruelly terrorizing townspeople, or saving the town from tsunami summoners only to be chased away and beaten as thanks. The main characters in many classic manga have mysterious motives or no discernable motives at all, none of them are more mystifying than Cat-eyed Boy.

The art has fun proto body horror, kind of campy EC feel with fewer boundaries concerning gore and violence. The character designs are reliably fun and interesting, the "horde of motley monsters" scenes are some of the best parts of the book. (If hordes of miscellaneous monsters appeal to you, which they do, try "Rusty and Big Guy," "Devilman," and almost anything by Yuichi Yokoyama (whose hordes aren't technically monsters but are highly motley.))

As much as I enjoy the comfort of the “rinse and repeat” story arcs of things like "Pokemon" or "Lone Wolf and Cub” the stories in "Cat-eyed Boy" tend to set the table then meander in any random direction. Such a unique series, if this sounds interesting at all read it because no one else does.

🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈/10

Mountains of Madness

Horror travelogues are one of the best genres of the night. “Mountains of Madness” follows an expedition to one of the poles where they find ancient relics and an abandoned city covered in unfamiliar hieroglyphs. You can probably guess the broad strokes of how it unfolds from there from the title. This is the best Lovecraft comic out there. (“Miskatonik” is great other than weak story boarding)

A highlight of the story is a long expository sequence going through the mythology of the elder gods, c’thulu, and shuggoth paired with abstract and disturbing art spreads. The characters are a little hard to tell apart so who’s saying what isn’t always easy to tell. It detracts a little from the flow of the story but overall the book is an enjoyable rendition of the Lovecraft story. 

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸/10

Read “Nyarhylotep” and if you’ve read it reread it.

Alien: Defiance

 Yes it’s another mash of dystopia, scifi, and horror. Being helpless in the vacuum of space faced with a creature as unforgiving and merciless as the void itself is a big theme of Alien. “Defiance” takes that a couple steps further with the main character who was discharged from the marines, has a debilitating back injury, is of very small stature, and is haunted by her failures, also, her only ally is a malfunctioning android. 

This book plays corporate greed, killing-machine aliens, and the void of space off each other better than any of the Alien comics I can think of, though there are quite a few good ones. The battle scenes are among the best I've seen. White knuckle action and high stakes throughout, one of the better written stories I’ve ever read comics wise. 

🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜/10