Midwest Book Review

Anne Steelyard: The Garden of Emptiness
Barbara Hambly, et al.
Penny Farthing Press
2000 W. Sam Houston Pkwy. South, Suite 550, Houston, TX 77042
9780984214303, $14.95, www.amazon.com

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by Andrew@TFAW

New Video Post Live From San Diego Comic-Con!

We caught up with Ron Randall in Artist's Alley at SDCC'09 for another segment of choose-your-own-adventure interview! Enjoy.

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Suspended Animation Review

Para, published by Penny Farthing Press, 178 pages, $19.95.

Having reviewed for the Suspended Animation column for about 9 years, there have been a few books which, for one reason or another, have been placed on the back burner and seen to later than they deserved. One or two have simply become misplaced for a time in my disorganized glut. That was the unfortunate case with Para, from Penny Farthing Press.

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Suspended Animation Review

Anne Steelyard: The Garden of Emptiness, Act One: An Honorary Man, published by Penny Farthing Press, 96 pages, $14.95.

Most comics fans have somewhere within them that insecure enthusiast who desperately desires to prove the merit of comics as an art form. I manage to keep mine under control for the most part. I hope you do, as well. For those occasions when you are unable, however, I would like to suggest a very impressive work to utilize in proving your point.

Anne Steelyard: The Garden of Emptiness is a graphic novel written by Barbara Hambly. In it, she treats readers to a sweeping epic, the quality of which hardly ever makes it to the big screen, much less your local comics shop.

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Suspended Animation Review

Captain Gravity and The Power of The Vril, published by Penny Farthing Press, 194 pages, $19.95.

Joshua Jones is a hero.  He just doesn’t know it.  And, as a young black man working in the movie industry of the ‘30's, not many people would give him the benefit of the doubt.  Destiny took a hand, however, when Joshua was “infected” by what he knows as Element 115.  Readers of this volume will come to know it as The Vril, and it’s tied-in to an epic adventure involving Nazi’s, Atlantis, and an objectionable symbol with which most everyone is familiar.

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Suspended Animation Review

Para/$19.95 and 192 pgs. from penny farthing press/story by Stuart Moore, art by Pablo Villalobos, Claude St. Aubin, and Federico Zumel/sold at comics and books shops and at www.pfpress.com.

A horrific disaster left a super-collider, the granddad of particle accelerators, highly radioactive. Every-one inside died. There were frogs embedded in crystal, and ghost-like wisps of something moving in the shadows. Twenty years later, the daughter of the project's leader decides to visit what is now a mass grave instead of a failed experiment.

Such is the premise of Para, a new graphic novel that reprints six earlier issues of a comic book series of the same title.

That sounds like the stuff of a great SF/Horror novel, movie, or graphic novel, doesn't it? Would you believe a pretty good graphic novel?

Let's look at story. Casual pacing never builds suspense, and certainly not horror. The frozen frogs that seem an important clue are forgotten about half way through Para, and the characters have a habit of fairly long, emotionless, dialog when confronted with apparitions and situations that would have left real humans speechless.

To his credit, characterizations are realistic and engaging, this graphic novel actually reads like a novel, and the author (who shows great promise; watch this guy) gratefully shies away from graphic violent, profanity, and the sexual innuendo that many writers think makes their work 'mature'.

Hurrah!!

The reality-based art starts on the high end of excellent, and ends a bit sloppy. As a simple example, the team that travels into the super-collider wear radiation contamination suits that start as tight fits on tight bodies and end as loose and ill-fitting on ladies who suddenly 'got back', i.e. large butts.

One should remember that good is certainly not bad, and Para is recommended for a pleasant read on a long, winter's afternoon. MV

Order Vance's history of the American Comics Group in Alter Ego #61 at www.twomorrows.com.

Interested in the exciting Oklahoma Cartoonists Collection and Toy and Action Figure Museum? Go to fourcolorcommentary.blogspot.com/

Suspended Animation Review

It isn't easy being green for either Kermit the Frog or Decoy the little alien. Both have seen better days.

Everyone knows that Kermit is a Muppet and that Muppets are waning in popularity. Fewer know that Decoy is a malleable, green alien whose word balloons are cluttered with what looks like chicken scratch, and who is the companion of a cop nicknamed Luck.

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