And a Lemonade for the Boy

Just a quick update on what's going to be happening over the coming months.

• I'm getting a story published by LessThan Three Press. It's been in the works for a while and I'll be going into more detail soon. It's my first paying gig, so I appreciate all the support from those interested.
• Obscure Comic of the Month is going to be taking a break for December and January to make room for Fallout 4 the coming year's affairs. This blog won't be devoid of content however, as...
• You'll be seeing a new Lisa Cummings shot story. I've been meaning to follow up The Case of the Exploding Meat, and It's been great to work with the character again. Lisa Cummings and the Five Minute Murder should be landing shortly before Christmas.
• I've been thinking about starting a webcomic. It's still in the prototype stages at the moment, but I think a weekly, three panel strip should be an achievable target. I'm trying to get back into the swing of things art wise, and should have some conclusive goals by January.
• It's likely I'll be doing a Stand Up Comedy for charity some time in April. I'll post details closer to the time.
• I'm back on Twitter, I won't be posting there much, but feel like It would be useful to engage with other creatives. Follow if you're interested.

And that's all for now, hopefully all this stuff will pan out and we'll see a productive year ahead. Thanks for bearing with me.

Obscure Comic of the Month - Professor Elemental Issue One

Obscure Comic of the Month is a monthly feature which takes a detailed look at a little known entry from my personal comic book collection. Some will be from major publishers, others self published projects, Original Graphic Novels, issues and Manga. What they'll all have in common though, is that I've rarely, if ever, seen anybody talk about them.

                                                                       

Professor Elemental Issue One by Paul Alborough and various – 2013

Spoiler Free

Issue 1 features 24 full colour pages featuring two original tales by some of the finest artists in the Independent comic scene, as well as an adaption of ‘The Quest For The Golden Frog’. It also boasts a cover by Mike 'Deadpool’ Hawthorne.

Adapting music to Comics is never easy, but it's clear that the Chap-hop sub-genre is fertile ground for it. An artist is never at a loss to draw something interesting thanks to the zany, steampunk inspired aesthetics, and the source material of tall tales and fantastic voyages.

What of Professor Elemental then? We're not here to talk about his contributions to the world of Chap-hop, though I will say I've long been a fan, on and off. I picked up Issue One and Two of the comic at a con a few years back. We'll only be taking a look at the first of the two today, and examining how it works as a companion piece to the Professor's musical canon as well as an introduction to the series as a whole.

The comics themselves are an anthology series of various tales involving the fictional Professor's exploits. Issue one has three stories, and almost immediately draws you in with the vivid, colours of Noah Rodenbeek which has a psychedelic quality to it. The musical undercurrents are clear here, with what feels like something out of The Beatles Yellow Submarine.

It's not long before we're onto our next tale, however. The change in art teams keeps things fresh, and gives us a different take on the character each time. Professor Elemental is a charming character in these tales, with his long suffering monkey butler Geoffrey appearing for the very first time (He's only ever off screen in the music videos.)

The bumbling idiot who only succeeds by chance however, is far from an original premise. Whether the comic has anything to offer really depends on if it can do anything new with the archetype. It's greatest asset is it's connection to the chap hop scene. Though the first two stories tap into the feel of Elemental's output, Elemental's status as a musician seems to be absent in these stories, and there's nary a musical theme touched upon.

For the third tale we see an adaptation of one of Elemental's actual songs, The Quest for the Golden Frog. It's a great idea and material ripe for the picking, but it's easily the weakest of the three stories in the issue. The Golden Frog strip lacks a zing that it really needs to channel the energy of the music.

Issue one is enjoyable enough, it's first story, on how Elemental and Geoffrey first met, is easily the best, both in terms of visuals and writing, but it doesn't really feel as though there's enough on offer here. The comic itself doesn't really dig enough into the music to offer anything to fans, and the strips themselves are not distinctive enough to appeal to the uninitiated.

Fortunately these are all problems that are resoundingly conquered in Issue Two, but that's a review for another day. All things considered, the anthology series gets off to a bumpy start, but in many respects that's in keeping with the Professor Elemental character itself.

                                                               

Jack Harvey 2015. Professor Elemental (c) Paul Alborough with work by Michael Hawthorne, James Feist, Liam Byrne, Owan Watts, Noah Rodenbeek and Christopher Mole. Images used under Fair Use.

Obscure Comic of the Month - ES Eternal Sabbath

Obscure Comic of the Month is a monthly feature which takes a detailed look at a little known entry from my personal comic book collection. Some will be from major publishers, others self published projects, Original Graphic Novels, issues and Manga. What they'll all have in common though, is that I've rarely, if ever, seen anybody talk about them.

                                                         

ES Eternal Sabbath Volume 1 by Fuyumi Soryo – Del Rey/Kodansha 2002

Contain Minor Spoilers

Ryousuke Akiba calls himself ES, a code name taken from a mysterious scientific experiment. Ryousuke will live to be at least two centuries old and possesses strange mental powers: He can enter peoples minds, discover their darkest secrets, even rearrange their memories so that complete strangers will treat him like family. Ryousuke acts not out of malice but for survival – wandering Tokyo for reasons known only to him. No one recognises him for what he is … until Dr. Mine Kujyou, a determined researcher, meets someone who challenges everything she knows about science – ES, possessor of the Eternal Sabbath gene. But is he the only one?

ES was my first real foray into manga. Up until that point I'd dismissed it as both childish, and needlessly sexualized and over the top. This of course, was a gross generalisation and I knew if I wanted to get the most out of the world of comics I'd have to start reading manga too. I'd read Ghost in the Shell first, having watched and enjoyed the movie, but the manga was a strange beast, made of big ideas with comedic interludes. So ES was an attempt to get into manga at a more baseline level.

ES was a great choice, and a lucky one too, since I pretty much picked it up at random. ES was a good taster for getting into manga. There were no over the top characters, no lengthy action sequences, no ridiculous haircuts. If there was anything I needed to show me that manga could be more than it was stereotyped as, then ES was just the ticket.

The premise itself isn't completely original, but it's focus on just one particular science fiction premise makes it more unique than most. Ryousuke Akiba has the ability to erase and rewrite people's memories and so walks unchallenged and unnoticed by mankind. We're first introduced to him during a short story that would work just as well as a standalone tale.

We see Ryousuke acting as a sort of vigilante as he uses his abilities to punish a murderous high schooler. It's a great introductory sequence, explaining to us the logic and limitations of Ryousuke's powers as well as showing us the kind of mischievous rogue that he is. It also introduces us to some of the series common elements, such as the surrealist visuals used during the mind reading sequences. They're hit and miss at times, with the choice of visuals seemingly being surreal for surrealism’s sake, but they're always interesting.

Still, it's a great intro, and feel in parts very reminiscent of Neil Gaiman's Sandman. A sort of Sandman light if you will.

It's after this introductory tale that we start the story proper, where we're introduced to Dr Mine Kujyou, our point of view character. Mine is a neurological researcher who take a scientific perspective when looking at Ryousuke's powers. Mine is instantly likeable, curious and intelligent, but also goofy and a bit of a loser. She's quick to ramble about the science behind the mind, especially at inappropriate times, and the story becomes genuinely charming and funny because of her.

The plot wastes no time getting started, and Fuyumi Soryo feeds us with enough actual knowledge for the science parts to ring true. Ryousuke is enough of a magnificent bastard at times that it's a pleasure to see him just do his thing, and his past is mysterious enough to keep us interested without feeling asinine over hiding away too much back story.

The volume ends on a cliffhanger of sorts, with the reveal of how Ryousuke came to be, and the danger posed by another who has similar powers. It's one hell of a set up, and really feeds the reader enough knowledge to stop them feeling as though they're being strung along. It's such a great set up in fact, that I’m genuinely temped to re-read the rest of the series in earnest.

A few notes on the artwork then. Fuyumi Soryo is a great fit for the story, and every character has a charisma to them that makes you want to keep reading. The artwork is generally realistic with just a touch of manga sensibilities to make it feel expressive. It's probably also worth noting that there's a mild degree of female gaze going on with Ryousuke, he's traditionally good looking from a woman's perspective and his choice of clothes appear to be designed to accentuate this appeal.

That's not a bad thing by the way, if anything I found it rather refreshing. It's also worth pointing out that the chapter breaks have some very sexy artwork for what is otherwise a straight faced mystery series, setting early the subtext that would appear in later volumes.

Given that it was one of the first mangas I read, I was expecting ES to have aged badly after years of stuff like 20^th Century Boys and The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. But I'm pleased to say it reads as fresh as it ever did. It's a shame the series, and Fuyumi Soryo herself, doesn’t appear to have a bigger following.

Highly recommended if you're looking for a serious, hard science fiction series with a little bit of mystery and romance.

                                                         

Jack Harvey 2015. ES (c) 2002 Fuyumi Soryo and published by Del Rey/Kodansha. Images used under Fair Use.

Correction One of...

When you start writing about stuff on a regular basis you're bound to make mistakes, miss important information or just not have access to certain facts. So here is the first of what hopefully won't be too many corrections.

In my piece on Maxwell Strangewell, I noted that I hadn't seen The Fillbach Brothers produce anything since 2009. Well, the Brothers themselves got in touch to let me know that they've actually been working on several books under First Comics (Who coincidently also released Necessary Monsters, a book I'll be taking a look at in a future column.). I also said that Strangewell was a good foundation to build on, so Cadaver Dogs of Winter and Lives look like particular stand outs.

Thanks for that guys, I'll be sure to check those out, and I encourage my readers to do so too.

In other news, that important thing I mentioned won't be much longer I swear.

Obscure Comic of the Month Special Edition - Dynamite's Pathfinder

This column has been taking a look at obscure comics for five months. For every every sixth month, instead of taking a look at a comic that nobody talks about, this special edition will take a look at a comic I feel not enough people talk about.

                                                             

Pathfinder by Jim Zub and various artists – Dynamite 2013 to present

Contains Mild Spoilers

I love the fantasy genre. I love made up languages and made up lands. I love ancient prophecies and mystical powers. I love elves and dwarfs and orcs and dragons. I love deconstructions, reconstructions, but most of all I just love straight po-faced don't-give-a-shit high fantasy. I loved it after my mum guilt tripped me into reading The Hobbit as a kid and I loved it playing the Baldur's Gate series through my teens.

I also love comics, but one thing that had never really crossed over to my love of comics is my love of the high fantasy genre. Fantasy, when it comes to comics, has always come from a different heritage than that of the sweeping sagas of Tolkein and Lewis. This heritage instead is that of Burroughs and Howard, gritty, bloody tales of in your face violence and unbridled testosterone.

For comics, the faces of the fantasy genre were that of Conan and Slaine and Valiant. Occasionally there were offbeat, quirkier entries like the Pini's Elfquest and the scene was no stranger to the occasional Forgotten Realms comic, though these were few and far between, and rarely considered classics.

Novels were home to the high fantasy setting. They were scene setters, world builders. Comics didn't have time for all that. That was a medium of action, and rarely could the marriage work. I tried reading a comic book adaptation of one of Salvatore's Drizzt books, it bored me to tears. I thought I'd never find a high fantasy comic that I could really enjoy.

It remains to be seen if things have changed, but here's hoping we're on the cusp of a golden age. Roger's Dungeons and Dragons series (now sadly on hiatus) really set the bar, and has been joined by Legends of the Sword Cost, Demon Knights and the wonderful Rat Queens, as well as Rucka's upcoming Dragon Age: Magekiller. Of all the series that have hit the stands however, it is Dynamite's Pathfinder that I love most of all.

Pathfinder isn't the best of the bunch, D&D takes that spot, and it's not the smartest either (hello Rat Queens!) but it's got a hell of a lot of heart, and a hell of a lot of charm. Jim Zub is better known for series like Skullkickers and Wayward, but he's still firing on all cylinders here. He manages to introduce us to an intricate fantasy world without losing momentum, and how he does that, quite simply, is by trusting his audience.

 Art By Sean Izaakse

Jim Zub knows that he doesn't need to waste time introducing us to this wild and wonderful world. If you're a Pathfinder player, then you already know the setting, and if you're a new reader then you can pick it up as you go along. If you've seen Lord of the Rings, played Warcraft or took even a cursory glance at a Magic: The Gathering card, you know the difference between an orc and a goblin. You're going to be okay.

What's smart is that Zub uses this audience familiarity in order to cut to the chase. There are six heroes that our story follows, stock archetypes all, but we don't need complex motivations and back-stories for each. Warrior Valeros is there to smash things and quote one liners, dwarf Harsk is there to complain and mage Seoni is there to shake her head while giving aside glances. While these characters are far from two dimensional, they're not the real focus of the plot, and are more there to serve as catalysts for the other three more interesting characters.

Valeros is here, he gets some cool moments, but Zub knows audiences would tire of the same old warrior protagonist fast. Instead we get more detail into the lives of flighty rogue Merisiel and her constantly fluctuating loyalties, while Cleric Kyra serves as an audience surrogate of sorts as she struggles to understand the customs of her companions.

By far the most interesting character though, is Ezren. At first glance he appears to be the age old sagely wizard, but instead the rug is pulled from under us. Ezren is in fact the least experienced member of the group. His tale is that of a man only becoming and adventurer in later life, and trying to prove that he's more than a pathetic old dreamer. His story is equal parts inspiring and heartbreaking, and an excellent fit for the cast.

The plot flies along quickly and comfortably. Each arc lasts about five to six issues and there aren’t many dangling plot threads or mysteries left over at the end of each. Pathfinder finds inspiration in the tabletop game that it's based on. As players, we don't play these games because we want to defeat the villain or stop the prophecy, we play because we like spending time with our friends.

 Art By Jack Bilbao

There's the real appeal of the book. The plot is merely there to facilitate spending time with these characters. It's not a massively complex multi-layered plot, and that's because it doesn't have to be. We're hear to see Ezren and co roll with the punches and support each other more than we are to see them stab a cyclops in the eye.

The rotating artists do wonders with the script too. We know how sleazy Valeros is from the moment we see him. Ezren's internal doubts are betrayed in each and every worried look he gives. The lead up to Meri and Kyra's relationship is communicated through subtle expressions and the body language they have around each other.

Like I said, the book trusts it's audience, It doesn't need to signpost every piece of world building and character development and that gives it room for some real drama and to occasionally pepper us with titbits about the setting.

I'm not going to talk about Pathfinder's reputation as an LGTB friendly IP, though believe me, I could talk for hours about it if I wanted to. What I will say though is that the tradition continues in this series, and dealt with rather well I feel. Kyra and Meri's relationship unfolds naturally and is depicted sweetly with minimum fanservice.

Art By Leandro Oliveira

Speaking of fanservice though, if Dynamite's Pathfinder has one downside, it's the design decisions. See, I was surprised to find that the Pathfinder RPG only launched in 2007, since the character designs feels more reminiscent of 1997. A lot of the characters look as though they've stumbled through a Devonshire antique shop. While they're hardly terrible, the character designs lack a clarity and cohesion that a fantasy setting really needs to reinforce it's identity.

By far though, the worst offender is Seoni. Dressed in what little fabric she has, Seoni looks as though she's one gust of wind away from a wardrobe malfunction. Of course, the problem isn't with Seoni's design as much as how it contrasts with her personality.

See, when you dress a character in revealing clothes, it communicates to the audience that there is a sexual element to the character. In X-Men, Emma Frost is a character very much in control of her sexuality and how she uses it, so it makes sense that she dresses that way. In Dragon Age, Isabela is always ready to jump in bed with someone at the drop of a hat, so it makes sense that she'd not wear any pants.

But Seoni? She's the straight faced one. She's the team mom. She's the de-facto leader and the voice of reason. There's nothing sultry or seductive or sensual about Seoni's personality. The only reason she is dressed that way is because that's how the original RPG character sheet depicted her, and the only reason for that was fanservice. The contradiction is palpable, and the story suffers for it. Valeros and Harsk look and act consistently, but Seoni is a paradox that the story struggles to find a place for.

It's a minor kink though (no pun intended) and one I hope subsequent volumes will iron out. As of writing the series has hit three volumes (not counting the prequels and spin offs), meaning it looks to last longer than the IDW D&D series did. This is great, I've enjoyed what Zub and the team have done so far, and I look forward to seeing where they take it in the future.

All things considered, Dynamite's Pathfinder is everything I could have wanted from a high fantasy series. All the tropes and cliché’s from Tolkein to Brooks, a diverse and quirky cast on par with the best of the tabletop and computer RPG's, and colourful and stylish art that I can drink up like I'm there.

If we are on the cusp of a golden age, I can only hope it's a long one.

 Art By Leandro Oliveira

                                                                 

Jack Harvey 2015. Pathfinder (c) 2007 Paizo Publishing, published by Dynamite Entertainment and written by Jim Zub. Images used under free use.

Obscure Comic of the Month - Red Warrior: Assassin for the Thieves World

Obscure Comic of the Month is a monthly feature which takes a detailed look at a little known entry from my personal comic book collection. Some will be from major publishers, others self published projects, Original Graphic Novels, issues and Manga. What they'll all have in common though, is that I've rarely, if ever, seen anybody talk about them.

                                                           

Red Warrior: Assassin for the Thieves World by Jeff Amano and Andy MacDonald – Image Comics 2006

Contains Major Spoilers

Agent Tolik Kalinchenko convinces Elena – a Russian Mafiya leader's daughter – to seduce an old flame that may be connected to a secret combat system called “Bespredel” (Russian for “without limits”). Elena risks her life for her country, Mother Russia, the world, but most of all, for Tolik. In a race against the clock, Tolik must destroy Bespredel's Red Warriors in time to save Elena, who has been discovered as an informant. But when war has no limits, where can love hide?

Red Warrior was another book that I picked up on the cheap from Worlds Apart Liverpool when I was at University. It was in the bargain bin for about two pounds, and it's cover not only had a skull but also a HAMMER AND AK SYMBOL! How could I possibly turn that down?

Unfortunately, Red Warrior never lives up to it's cover. The story is a mash up of serious espionage and more fantastical super hero elements, about a covert team of Russians working in the US. As a premise, that's real fertile ground to build something unique and stand out from the crowd. Unfortunately, Red Warrior foregoes any opportunity to build upon those unique areas and instead chooses to give us something far more generic.

The story, for what it's worth, is not particularly complex. Tolik, a Russian spy with superpowers, is tasked with seducing a mobster's daughter for his agency's war against the Russian Mafiya. Elena, falling hard for Tolik, has to do the same to another mobster, in order to get the names of those involved in the secret Red Warrior program.

Tolik oversteps his authority and gets reassigned to Texas, where he comes across the creator of the Red Warrior program. In a “shocking twist,” Tolik is revealed to have been a Red Warrior all along. He kills his creator, heads back to New York, only to find that his boss has been wounded and Elena killed. With her dying breath she gives him the names, and the story ends with him setting off on a path of revenge.

As stories go, a simple narrative is no bad thing, it gives plenty of room for scene setting and world building. If Red Warrior has one sin though, it's that it decides to tell the audience absolutely nothing. The whole nature of Tolik's organisation is barely discussed, the superpowers are poorly defined and the actual stakes in their war against the Mafiya are unclear.

 

Is Tolik's organisation affiliated in any way with US services? Are superpowers common knowledge? Are the Mafiya a foreign crime family or have they integrated into American society? We never find out. All the way through, Red Warrior takes no time to fill in any of the gaps. There isn't even an American character in this American set story. They're all either Mafiya this, or Spetsnaz that, and we never get any real sense anything that sets them apart.

This lack of clarity kills the story dead. The reader has no concept of the stakes whatsoever. Without establishing the specifics of what the powers of a Red Warrior are, it ultimately renders the twist meaningless. We spend so little time getting to know Elena that we have no emotional investment in the race against time. We're never given a reason to root for Tolik, nor boo the Mafiya, nothing is established, no themes are reinforced.

But what's more frustrating is how Red Warrior squanders such a promising premise. The story could have given us a taste of what the life of a Russian immigrant in the US must actually be like. Or it could have explored what place the new Russia has on the world stage. Hell, it could have at least been an interesting take on a spy drama with the introduction of superpowers, but their relevance to the plot is completely superfluous and is barely featured in the actual story.

Instead, Red Warrior is more interested in telling us it's generic spy tale full of generic stock characters and tropes. It's so generic that you could erase all mention of the characters being Russian and it wouldn't change the plot one iota.

I haven't talked about Andy MacDonald's art yet and that's because there's not really that much to say. It's serviceable, but he's not really given much to do and his art doesn't really elevate the source material much. His scrappy, gritty art style works well enough for the spy stuff but doesn't do much for the action scenes.

So Red Warrior is a generic spy story that doesn't live up to it's promise, but that's not quite the end of it. See, once our story is concluded, we're treated to an article by Kat Amano about Mixed Martial Arts, followed by a bunch of adverts for Judo training and the like. Not what I expected to find in the back of an Image graphic novel about Russian spies.

See I think... and I've looked, but found nothing online to verify this... but I think Red Warrior is supposed to be some kind of MMA spin-off. There's a big deal made in the text about Tolik knowing all these different kinds of martial arts, and the fight scenes, sparse though they are, look as though they might be influenced by actual techniques.

 It's like Charles Atlas never left us.

If this is true, then it's all the more damning for Red Warrior. When it comes to spin-off's you can get away with a throwaway plot if you're just there for some themed action, but if Red Warrior is indeed some kind of MMA comic, then it's a bad one at that. The fights are few and far between and lack any focus on the moves. It's not an action comic, it's an espionage comic. An odd fit if it's supposed to have an MMA connection.

Ultimately, if you're a fan of spy comics, I can't really recommend Red Warrior, go and read Greg Rucka's Queen and Country instead. If you like MMA, well I can't really recommend it either. Red Warrior isn't bad, but it so generic you'd be hard pressed to remember the comic mere hours after reading it.

                                              

Jack Harvey 2015. Red Warrior (c) 2006 Image Comics and Beckett Entertainment Partners LLC, Jeff Amano and Andy MacDonald. Images used under Fair Use.

Obscure Comic of the Month - The Prisoner: Shattered Visage

Obscure Comic of the Month is a monthly feature which takes a detailed look at a little known entry from my personal comic book collection. Some will be from major publishers, others self published projects, Original Graphic Novels, issues and Manga. What they'll all have in common though, is that I've rarely, if ever, seen anybody talk about them.

                                                          

The Prisoner: Shattered Visage by Dean Motter and Mark Askwith – DC Comics 1988

Contains Major Spoilers

Spies and secret agents were the courageous champions of the 1960's. The glamour, the gadgets, and the beautiful femme fatales were inseparable from the weighty implications of their daring assignments. It was a time when espionage seemed exotic and even heroic.

In 1968 one television show challenged that notion. Indeed, it even questioned the nature of an individual's relationship to society. That show was THE PRISONER.

It was the story of a man who, after resigning from a top secret government agency, finds himself the prisoner of an unknown power in an ominous wonderland known as The Village.

Now, twenty years later, in an era where the morality of covert operations is no longer taken for granted, we again find ourselves in The Village. It's fate and significance are, at last, about to be revealed.

Shattered Visage is far from what can be considered truly obscure, but for a licensed comic, and indeed The Prisoner's only licensed comic, it goes almost unmentioned by many. I once asked Chris Sims from Comics Alliance about his thoughts on the book, and he confessed he couldn't really remember much about it. So, since nobody else felt up to the task, here is The Prisoner: Shattered Visage.

One can never understate the importance of The Prisoner. It was the first TV series, truly the first, that insisted the viewer engage the story as a whole. Though each episode was mostly self contained, it demanded that viewers tune in every week to pick the story apart for clues. You can almost see the through line with it's legacy today. Without The Prisoner there would have been no Twin Peaks, no X-Files, no The Wire, Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones.

Shattered Visage is a strange book, even by it's source material's standards. It seeks to be many things. A continuation of a long finished TV series. Both a re-visitation and deconstruction of it's themes. An explanation of it's final mysteries. That Shattered Visage would set it's goal so high, is almost certainly undermined by the fact that it is not nearly as clever as it thinks it is.

The story is packed with call backs and references. Conversations and lines of dialogue are taken almost verbatim from the original series and uttered in a new context. The art repeatedly uses visual cues to reinforce it's 'prisoner' theme, using panel frames as prison bars being one such example.

By and large a lot of this stuff hits its mark. I first read Shattered Visage about three months after finishing the TV series, and I lapped up all of the fanservice. It's only looking back now that I realise that the book is all style and no substance. It's actual narrative has very little to add or say about the series on which it is based.

Our story is split mostly into two parts. Alice, a former secret agent, has her round-the-world boat trip sabotaged and ends up stranded in The Village, crossing paths with a now deranged Number Six. Her ambitious husband, Thomas, also a secret agent and the one responsible for the sabotage, scrabbles around the halls of power trying to unravel The Village's mystery.

Practically nothing happens for most of The Village segments beyond nods to the series, and instilling a cathartic tone at seeing the previously sinister landscape brought low. The Whitehall segments have significantly more meat, but don't give us anywhere near enough answers to feel fulfilling. Nor do the Whitehall segments feel like The Prisoner at all.

In many respects Shattered Visage feels as though it was written too early. That the writers didn't have enough hindsight to truly deconstruct The Prisoner. It's worth mentioning that overturning nostalgia was still a new trick back in 1988 (Watchmen was published only a year earlier.)

It's main theme, the idea that The Village was merely a prototype for Western Civilisation is a great pay off. Though it would be a lot more cutting now in a world of mass surveillance, media outreach and cult of celebrity. The warnings of The Prisoner now are a hell of a lot more harrowing than they were in 1988.

The story finally starts kicking into gear towards the climax, with Number Six and Number Two finally having a showdown and the British Government moving to take The Village and it's secrets. But it's all over far to quickly, with little to give us a satisfying conclusion and it's pessimistic predictions given little foundation to build upon.

It's frustrating in a way. A lot of the written dialogue has the wit and sharpness of the TV show at it's best, yet we're never really given the great stakes for it to rise to. Motter's art too is great, but some weird design choices, like giving Number 6 a massive beard and rendering him almost unrecognisable, rob the book of that classic Prisoner identity.

When it comes down to it, Shattered Visage is fan fiction. It may be classed as an authorised sequel and headed by a major publisher, but under all of that it's still fanfic. Motter and Askwith themselves know as much of Patrick McGoohan's secrets as you or I do. What conclusions the book gives us are little more than their own theories.

McGoohan, for what it's worth, said something along the lines of “Reasonable enough, I suppose.”

Ultimately, if Shattered Visage had committed fully to at least one of it's goals then maybe it would have been a success. Sadly, it's not nearly trippy and psychedelic enough the feel like a continuation of the series, nor does it provide any satisfying answers to the mysteries that the series left. It wants to make it's mark on The Prisoner canon, but spends most if it's time reiterating things from the series. At one point a character utters “There's something of Number 6 in all of us,” as though it is deep and meaningful. It isn't.

There's a lot of good in Shattered Visage. The numerous references, both texual and visual, will please any fan of the series. But it's undercooked. Shattered Visage hasn't the time to make any grand statements on the human condition, and was written at a time that lacked the perspective to give them.

For most comics, that might still be enough, but when you propose to be a sequel to one of the most important pieces of art the 20^th Century has given us, you are held to a higher standard.

Be seeing you.

                                                

Jack Harvey 2015. The Prisoner: Shattered Visage (c) 1988 DC Comics, Dean Motter and Mark Askwith. The Prisoner was created by Patrick McGoohan and George Markstein and produced by ITC Entertainment. Images used under Fair Use.