By Andrew A. Smith
Tribune Content Agency
Nov. 5, 2020 — Ready to curl up with a good graphic novel? Here are some options:
BASKETFUL OF HEADS
Basketful of Heads is an original story by writer Joe Hill and artist Leomancs. (Cover art by Leomancs, copyright DC Comics)
DC Comics has launched a horror line called Hill House Comics, starring writer Joe Hill, beginning with Basketful of Heads ($24.99). You might wonder why this Hill fella rates his own line of comics, but you can stop wondering when I whisper that he’s the son of Stephen King, which he does not advertise.
Nor should he, as he can clearly stand on his own. Basketful of Heads is not only scary, it’s a thrill ride full of memorable characters and plot twists that even this veteran didn’t see coming.
Or to quote Hill himself from the back of the book, “I wanted our first title to be insane, WTF, relentless reading; to script something that would blast along like an 18-wheeler going downhill with no brakes.”
Which he achieves, for the most part. There are some bits in the middle where the action has to pause a little bit for exposition, which is achieved through dialogue. That’s not really a complaint, because the plot is so surprising and complex it almost has to be explained now and again, and Hill picks the right spots and the right characters to do the work.
Mainly, it’s a heart-in-mouth gauntlet for the lead character, an ordinary teenage girl named June Branch who finds herself in extraordinary circumstances. Like: a whole lot of people trying to kill her, for reasons she doesn’t understand. It’s her story, and Hill never lets us forget that she isn’t a spy or a stone killer or a superhero or anything else that would help her cope.
And while the story is set on Brody Island in Maine, it could take place in any small, seashore town that’s dependent on tourism. June, for example, reminds me of any number of girls I met when I lived in Panama City, Florida; she’s just an ordinary with girl with freckles, way-too-short cutoffs and not much thought for the future.
It should also be mentioned that the story takes place in 1983. I’m guessing that’s to rid the story of cell phones and the Internet, in order to keep June isolated throughout. Or maybe Hill has watched Stranger Things too many times.
Part of what sells the story is the art by Leomacs, whose realistic, straightforward style can veer effortlessly from quirky humor to outright gore. His heartland-fresh characters are always believable, whether they’re sunning on a bridge or wielding an enchanted Viking axe.
Oh, have I not mentioned the axe yet? Well, it’s important plot-wise, in that it’s responsible for the titular heads. But honestly, this one magic bit — and it’s only one — is sold as straightforwardly as everything else. Plus it doesn’t really affect the plot that much, making it almost background for June’s adventure.
An adventure, I hasten to add, where everyone has a price to pay. Even June.
MANGA YOKAI STORIES
Writer Sean Michael Wilson and illustrator Inko Ai Takita adapt Manga Yokai Stories from the work of Lafcadio Hearn. (Cover art by Inko Ai Takita, copyright Tuttle Publishing)
Yokai is a Japanese catch-all term for supernatural critters and monsters in the island nation’s folklore. If you didn’t know that, don’t feel bad: I didn’t know it either until I read the book.
Which I really wanted to do, when I heard of its existence. I devoured Greco-Roman and Norse mythology as a youngster, and that interest didn’t stop in youth, or at some imaginary border between European culture and everything else.
Not that I am entirely unfamiliar with cool Japanese mythology. Marvel Comics has introduced numerous Japanese deities over the years, including Amaterasu (Godess of the Sun), Amatsu-Mikaboshi (God of Evil) and Anu (God of Heaven). I’ve met numerous kaiju (monsters) in the form of Godzilla, Mothra and other Toho movie stars. And Dark Horse’s Hellboy stories find inspiration all over the globe, including nukekubi, Japanese creatures who look like humans, but whose heads detach at night and fly around looking for victims to consume.
Yeah. Think about that.
The nukekubi were truly chilling when I ran across them in Abe Sapien: Drums of the Dead (1998), and again in the animated Hellboy: Sword of Storms (2016). To read about them in their original context is even more exciting.
And that pretty much describes my experience reading Manga Yokai Stories. The various myths and folk tales, depicted in semi-realistic manga style, are fascinating both as glimpses into Japanese culture and as an exploration of universal human fears. From the woman who lives in a screen to the man who has to ride his wife’s animated corpse like a horse, it’s an edifying mix of cultural education and outright horror.
ATLAS AT WAR!
Atlas at War! collects 1950s war stories by a murderer’s row of artists, first published in 1950s Atlas war comics. (Cover art by Jack Kirby, published by Dead Reckoning, copyright 2020 Marvel)
Back in the 1950s, the publisher that would someday be Marvel Comics was known as Atlas Comics. One thing that Atlas was known for was volume, in that it had a tendency to jump on various trends and flood the market with a given genre, before canceling all those books to jump on the next trend. When the Korean War began in 1950, the trend Atlas milked was war comics.
Did I mention volume? The foreword to Atlas at War! notes the publisher released 125 war stories across 17 titles in 1952 alone, and in 1953 Atlas released as many as 14 war titles a month!
Atlas war titles began to wane when the Korean War ended in July 1953, and the Comics Code of 1954 watered down war comics altogether. A distribution disaster in 1957 further reduced Atlas’ output, not just of war books, but of all titles.
Nevertheless, hundreds of war stories saw print at Atlas throughout the decade: some good, some bad, some terrible. It was that gold mine that ‘50s comics expert Michael J. Vassallo dug into for Atlas at War!, a collection of war stories from that publisher, lifted from various titles, from War Stories #7 in 1951 to Battle #70 in 1960.
I should note that while all these stories are pretty good, none are great. For one thing, most of these stories might well be classified as propaganda. While allowing that war is hell — the suffering of the troops is a feature, not a bug — Americans are always the good guys, and almost always win. Bad guys, when Japanese or Korean, are ugly caricatures painful to the modern eye. And given that the stories are generally 3 to 5 pages long, you’re not going to find any deep character studies, complicated plots or Shakespearean drama.
Further, accuracy wasn’t a priority. For the most part weapons and uniforms are relatively true to history, as far as I can tell, because artists, especially artists who are veterans, tend to be sticklers in that regard. But writers, not so much. “Gettysburg,” published in 1960, had more laughable historical errors than it had pages (four).
So why read this book? Because of the art, man, because of the art.
You have Jack Kirby, co-creator of Captain America, Black Panther, Fantastic Four, X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, Sgt. Fury and the Howling Commandoes, Silver Surfer and much of the rest of Marvel’s creative surge in the 1960s. Bill Everett, creator of the Sub-Mariner. Jerry Robinson, co-creator of The Joker and Catwoman. Famed EC Comics artists Bernie Krigstein and John Severin. Steve Ditko, the co-creator of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange. Mort Drucker and Jack Davis, names familiar to any MAD reader. Gene Colan, of Daredevil and Tomb of Dracula fame. Joe Maneely, Atlas’ biggest star, fondly remembered for Black Knight and Yellow Claw. Master of texture and lighting Russ Heath, who drew zillions of Westerns, and co-created “Haunted Tank” and “Sea Devils” for DC Comics. Syd Shores and Joe Sinnott, two of Marvel’s greatest and most instantly recognizable inkers.
This book is visual treat, whether you’re a comics fan or not. So ignore the words where they’re dumb, and the racial caricatures where they’re painful, and the obvious patriotic rah-rah. Just look at the purdy pictures. They are, the expression goes, worth the price of admission.
Find Captain Comics by email (capncomics@aol.com), on his website (captaincomics.ning.com), on Facebook (Andrew Alan Smith) or on Twitter (@CaptainComics).
Replies
I read Basketful of Heads in monthly installments, then when the last issue came out, I read the whole thing. I agree it's a good little horror story told with modern-day sensibilities.
I'll agree, too, that the art in Atlas at War! is better than the stories. It's an excellent look at this company's output, in this era, in this genre.
My wife enjoyed Basketful of Heads as well, so I've ordered the other Hill Comics collections, even though only one of them (Plunge) is by Hill himself.