Tag Archive for 'image-comics'

27
Apr

The Pirates of Coney Island

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When you search a little the mini series casually released by different publishers you will notice that they include different styles, innovative ideas, revolutionary creations, everything we usually miss by the ongoing ones. A perfect example of the previous statement is the 8-issue series currently published by Image, The Pirates of Coney Island, written by Rick Spears and illustrated by Vasilis Lolos.

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Vasilis Lolos, a greek comic creator who published most of his previous work in Athens, moved to America ready not to translate his previous work (which is more than notable) but to begin a whole new chapter in his professional history, and it’s obvious that he made it in a very short period. He made the Pirates of Coney Island, which is overflowed by his unique, personal style, he made a Spider-Man story for Marvel in Spider-Man: Family #02, his Last Call is coming this summer by Oni Press, not bad for a European artist in the mayhem of the United States! Rick Spears, the writer of Teenagers from Mars, Dead West and Filler is also the publisher of the Gigantic Graphic Novels, currently publishing two comics, Rotting in Dirtville and Hellcity.

The Pirates is a love story, or maybe it’s a crime story, well I have no idea how to categorize it and frankly, I don’t care to. Two gangs of rebellious teens, the Pirates and the Cherries, fight for domination in Coney Island, they fight violently, they bleed together, they fall in love with each other and at the same time live outside the law, stealing cars and selling them for their parts. It’s as unconventional as it gets, the only way to get it is to read it by yourselves and not leave any synopsis make you judge it as rude (well, that it might be), sick (mmm, that’s ain’t always bad) or too violent (too violent? Is there such a thing?). Europe and America are united in this goth-post modern-romantic-whatever else story, don’t miss it!

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18
Mar

Fell - Feral City

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So many pages, so little time, there comes a point if you read comics fanatically when you have to begin choosing what you will invest your time into and what you’ll have to reject. And when that time comes we all have our own ways of judging, you might prefer a solid story or the captivating art, but any way you choose to go there are very few creations that manage to impress almost everyone, and those are destined to be become classics. Such one is Fell, written by Warren Ellis (Transmetropolitan, The Authority, Planetary, Red), art by Ben Templesmith (30 Days of Night, Wormwood Gentleman Corpse), two of the best there are in what they’re doing.

fellpanel.jpgFell was created by Ellis in an attempt to create a comic first of all cheaper than the usual 2.99$ or 3.99$, and that’s not as easy as it sounds, not by far. He had to make it in less pages without destroying the story, and to do that he used a nine panel grid format in each page, thus compressing the story. He had to find an artist able to share his vision. They both had to work efficiently with each other in order to make every single issue a stand-alone story and still all of them parts of a greater picture, a dark and corrupt city pulled out of a noir film. All these and a bunch of other goodies like unfinished art, analysis of the story, e-mail responses to readers and so much more in a 1.99$ comic book, the greatest way for a creator to show his respect to his readers. The acknowledgement for this effort was huge, all of them were sold out just days after their release and many printings followed, and now it’s time for the first graphic novel collecting the first 8 issues of the series, ladies and gentlemen here comes Fell vol.1: Feral City TP.

 

This is the story of Richard Fell, a police detective transferred to Snowtown from the big city, in a station with four more officers, trying to survive in the freakiest district he could stumble upon. As Ellis himself says, in a place where nothing seems to make any sense Detective Fell clings to the one thing he knows to be true, everybody’s hiding something. This is not ordinary comics reading people, it’s history on the making, so forget all those conventional stuff out there for a moment and don’t let yourselves stay out of this, it’s not every day that you come upon a truly collectible edition and the chance to obtain it!

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