Date: 07/24/2006

Category: · Writing  » Reviews  » Comic Books · Writing  » Topic  » misc

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When we're reading comics about hard-boiled female reporters unflinchingly uncovering terrible secrets during a time of war, we don't want to see delicate ladies -- we want to see take-no-prisoners broads. Like the classic plucky Lois Lane, or like trousers-wearing Amy Archer in The Hudsucker Proxy, or like the tenacious Nina Totenburg. The character of Charlotte Hemming, in Ian Edgington and Matt Brooker's Scarlet Traces: The Great Game, does not disappoint.

Look at her! Glint in her eye, ashy cigarette in her lips, hair tied back and camera poised! Oooh, she's just WAITING to give some poor chowderhead what-for. Charlotte lives in a futuristic world -- well, actually, it's the past -- well, actually, it's kind of chronologically sideways, a sequel to H. G. Wells's War of the Worlds. Mars has been rebuffed, Britain has appropriated Martian technology and grown mighty, a counter-strike against Mars is underway, and fat evil wrinkly men conspire to censor the press even as Charlotte throws herself into the pursuit of Scottish bombers and hobnail-booted thugs, all in the name of truth. Goosebumps! She's totally the Helen Thomas of the 1800s. Actually, maybe Helen Thomas is the Helen Thomas of the 1800s.

After the jump: a desert, and the 80s.

Wasteland gets our pulse rate up, too, and for a similar reason: a plucky female heroine -- dare we say, a Broad -- who knows what's what and doesn't take any baloney. The book's by Antony Johnston and Christopher Mitten (which rhymes with kitten!), and it, too, is set in a sort of sidewaysey time of war. Somehow decimated to a desert Mad-Maxian subsistance sort of life, the human race makes a living picking the remnants of ruined technological relics, whenever they're not being attacked by sand people. (What are sand people doing outside the Star Wars universe? We're a little baffled by that one.)

A brusque nomad wanders through a remote outpost, buying some supplies and inquiring about some strange alien-language relics he found. Everyone claims to know nothing about them, but he can tell when he's being lied to -- and says as much to the fearless lady-sheriff of the frontier town. Our heros are surrounded and attacked by zombie-ish desert monsters, and though they're able to defend themselves, the battle destroys the town. Their only hope is to caravan several days over to the next outpost ... but questions linger about the significance of the relics, and the nomad's telekinetic abilities.

We love the desperate, one-step-from-death vibe that Wasteland evokes -- there's not one panel that's not frought -- frought! -- with suspense. This is a world where the slightest sign of weakness means death, so all the players hold their cards so close to their chests that it's hard to even tell that they've got any. The result: riddles, wrapped in enigmas, layered in delicious mysteries, coated in rich creamery butter.

Comic book scholars, if such silliness actually exists, have had twenty years to say more than we ever could about Peter Gillis and Mike Saenz's Shatter, the world's first computer-produced comic book. It's been compared to Blade Runner, which is fair in that we have no idea what's happening at any point. Something about genes? And about killing people and stealing their skills? And about the nature of identity and self? Or something? It's one of those stories where you've got to be able to penetrate layers of loaded dialogue and a maze of interconnecting references. We've never been much good at catching drifts, so we just had to set it to autopilot and enjoy the art.

And how about that art! This re-release of the original is a pixely masterpiece, that's fer damn sure. Nowadays it's hard to find a book that wasn't made with a computer's help, but these guys invented it, with gusto. Some of those panels are of a quality that pixel artists today would be congratulated for creating -- they don't just look good, they've got an amazing sense of drama and film-noir style. It's really amazing that this was the first out of the gate, and not something created after years of refining a craft.