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More Comics Friday Review Round-Up, July 27

By The Editors
July 27, 2012 - 12:37

Did you miss any of our independent comics reviews this week? Well, with our More Comics Friday Review Round-Up, you can keep up with our weekly coverage of comics properties that exist beyond the purview of Marvel and DC. Enjoy!


Fever Moon

"Lawrence makes sure you understand the characters, settings, and over-arching plot, and “Fever,” at least as far as Fever Moon is concerned, is a fun place to be.  Whatever the novels may be, Fever Moon works as a comic book.  It has a weird, pulp-inspired quality that made me think that Fever Moon exists outside of any book series.  It is genuinely a comic book, so the people behind this graphic novel succeeded.  They created an independent urban fantasy comic book, and a good one, at that.  I’m ready to howl at this Fever Moon for more."

(read the full review)



Debris #1

"From the front cover to the last page, this comic book is absolutely gorgeous. Rossmo's layouts and pacing are pitch perfect, and Gieni's palette is vibrant, scintillating, creating a liquid sheen that ensnares your attention. The creatures, assembled from spare machine parts and refuse, are ingenious and breathtakingly designed. I was happy to see that longtime self-publisher Ed Brisson was in on the action as well, delivering some really brilliant lettering that shows a professional and artistic eye for space, pacing, and flow while melding into that bright palette immaculately."

(read the full review)



Prophet #27

"If you're not really able to follow the plot from month to month, I wouldn't blame you. Graham's Prophet isn't simply subtle; it can be downright abstruse, moreso a vehicle for the book's prodigious artistic showcase than a  heavily-scripted, blockbuster epic. It is epic, however, in every sense of the word, spanning space and time and constructing a vividly and uniquely original mythos, but the series moves in mysterious ways, often progressing the narrative through detached artistic perspective and by the sheer newness of its worlds and concepts. In this way, Moebius' L'Incal is the direct inflectional progenitor of Prophet, and it's nothing short of mystifying to have the opportunity to pick up a contemporary art book like that right off the comic shop stands every month."

(read the full review)



Star Wars: Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison #3

"Packed with some pretty thinly veiled, but nonetheless incredibly poignant political metaphor and commentary, Star Wars: Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison continues to be one of the more interesting Star Wars universe based Dark Horse comics released recently. The character development is incredibly fresh and powerful as Thom, Trachta, and the Imperial rebels on Coruscant are all engaging, and in many cases tragically flawed in a Shakespearian way, much like Darth Vader himself. His fascist out look of there being only “…black and white…what benefits the Empire and what does not” was fostered by the lack of transparency that the Jedi Council reveled in before the fall of the Old Republic, and the existence of the Ghost Prison’s existence being hidden from the young Anakin Skywalker was just another mistake that tipped the galaxy into being dominated by a military dictatorship."

(read the full review)



Punk Rock Jesus #1

"Sometimes artists don’t make the best writers and sometimes writers don’t make the best artists (David Finch’s stories in The Dark Knight are regularly criticized and even Alex Ross’ work in writing has been nothing to write home about) and I think Punk Rock Jesus is an example of this.  Murphy too seems to have a grasp of storytelling but, for all his wonderful illustrations of pretty cool looking characters, they don’t sound like anything I haven’t heard before and certainly don't escape sounding like flat, unreasonable depictions of the worst any group (except most glorious atheists!) have to offer.  It's like thinking Westboro Baptists are every Christian on the planet.  The protagonist of the story looks and acts like the Punisher, the scientist sounds like almost every scientist depicted in popular media, and the virgin mother is so blank (cause virgins regularly don’t have personality) that she barely makes a sound or expression until she’s forcing Jesus out of her."

(read the full review)



Saga #5

"Fiona Staples is only aiding Vaughan’s script in every imaginable way.  Her rough style, sparse backgrounds, and ability to infuse every scene with emotion and heart without any exaggeration makes her easily one of his best collaborators.  Not to mention the constant design she comes up with every issue, fusing fantasy and science fiction seamlessly and making every issue, already a joy, into something incredible.  Saga is probably my favourite book on the shelf and I would find it hard to see why anything else comes close.  Original, clever, and packed with trademark Vaughan wit while looking this good."

(read the full review)



Axe Cop: President of the World #1

"If there is a creative endeavor that more beautifully captures the thoughts and feelings of being an imaginative child than Axe Cop, I haven’t found it. Hopefully, you know the story of Ethan and Malachai Nicolle. Ethan is the older brother (in his 30s) and the artistic muscle behind Axe Cop. The real magic comes from the fact that all of Axe Cop’s adventures are written by the much younger brother, Malachai (age 8). If you have never read one of AC’s adventures, check out their website and you can read a lot of content for free. Of course, Dark Horse was wise enough to sign the pair to a deal which allows them to release original comic book adventures in addition to their online content."

(read the full review)



Beasts of Burden: Neighborhood Watch

"Reading it is a stranger affair. I have a shameful confession; I’ve never really read any Evan Dorkin before. Milk and Cheese passed me right by. His contribution to Bizarro comics was cute but didn’t blow me away. Beasts of Burden is kind of tonally all over the place. Of the three stories featured in this one-shot, a kind of whimsical adventure in which a dog and cat chase a goblin takes a really dark turn at the mid-way point. The animals sometimes curse, which leads me to believe this isn’t an all ages book. However, there are some Archie style bad jokes and cutesy fourth wall breaking in the second story that strike an odd chord."

(read the full review)

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12