Cinebook Ltd: XIII Mystery 3- Little Jones and XIII Mystery 4- Colonel Amos

 

Authors: Yann & Eric Henninot
Age: 15 years and up
Size: 18.4 x 25.7 cm
Number of pages: 56 colour pages

£9.99 incl VAT

 ISBN: 9781849182744
Publication: June 2024

Chicago, the Seventies. Life is tough when you’re an orphan in the streets – and even more so if you’re black. Little Jones, 10, doesn’t even know her real name. All she has is a brother who flirts with the Black Panthers, a streak of cunning and determination a mile wide, and a dream: that of some day enlisting into the Army. A chance encounter with war hero Major Whittaker will change her life forever...

Authors: Alcante & François Boucq
Age: 15 years and up
Size: 18.4 x 25.7 cm
Number of pages: 56 colour pages

£9.99 incl VAT

ISBN: 9781849182768
Publication: June 2024

Colonel Amos is the head of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division. His current investigation sends him on the trail of an agent of Mossad – Israeli intelligence. The ensuing operation – a joint FBI/CIA effort – will prove to be a difficult one. Not only because of the agent’s skill, or because the colonel and his CIA counterpart Giordino don’t get along, but also because before coming to the USA, Samuel Amos was a founding member of Mossad...

I reviewed volume 1 -Mongoose- here and in September 2014

https://hoopercomicart.blogspot.com/2014/09/cinebook-9th-art-xiii-mystery-i-mongoose.html

and volume 2 )Irina- here in January 2022

https://hoopercomicart.blogspot.com/2022/01/cinebook-ltd-xiii-mystery-irina.html

With those dates you can see where I am going. I got these books and had no idea what they were about and yet they were the third and fourth volumes in a five volume series (I really do hope to live long enough to see volume five but at my age it's a case of "fingers crossed").

I stand by everything I have written about the original XIII series as it had suspense, mystery, gripping action and when I read through it a couple weeks back my opinion had not changed.  Everything since that time has seemed to be cashing in on XIII.

Do not get me wrong; the writing is good and the art is of the quality we expect from European comic albums but they are just not gripping me.  Why was Clint Eastwood's character "The Man With No Name" so successful? Because we had the story and action but he was still a mystery to us. We had XIIIs story and now it is almost like making a movie to tell the store owner's life story or the guy running the stables when everything we needed rested on the mystery of Clint's character.

What happened in Mongoose or Irina and were they parts of a continuing saga picked up by Little Jones and Colonel Amos?  I have absolutely no idea since part one was eleven years ago -I keep double checking that date because I still can't believe it was that long ago. And the other volume was two years ago.  Nine years between volume 1 and 2 is not good and  two years between 2 and 3 and 4...not good. I do not have enough time to read all the past volumes in this and other series to catch up.

It does not matter how good a series or story is waiting between issues can kill a book. Look at when Fantagraphics decided that Love and Rockets (my favourite Indie book) was going to go yearly. I think I got as far as remembering up to volume 3 and then comic shops said it was not worth ordering in. Readers lost interest.

I do not know what goes on at Cinebook but I have been the company's biggest supporter since it started publishing but to open a package with 10 or so books and find that there were years between volumes kills the excitement and fun. There are other books I know that are part of a series but only two volumes have appeared a good while ago.  Hopefully, Cinebook can get caught up at some point.

At least the reader can buy volumes 1-4 and know that it leaves one issue to get and then the series is complete.  

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Luis Angel Dominguez

 Anyone able to give more info on this artist, especially the year he died?  Thanks

Luis Angel Dominguez is an Argentinian artist, who has worked a lot for American horror and mystery comic books in the 1960s and 1970s. He has made comics in his native country since the 1940s. He has cooperated with the writer Hector German Oesterheld on 'Scout River' in 1956. He also worked on comics like Patoruzito and Pancho Lopez. He did his first US works in the early 1960s, contributing to 'The Wonders of Aladdin' (Dell) and 'The World Around Us' (Gilberton).

Between 1963 and 1970 has was affiliated with the Union Studio in Latin America. He did back-up features for Charlton and drew for many of the company's 1960s war and western titles, such as 'Cheyenne Kid', 'Fightin' Marines', 'Billy the Kid' and 'Outlaws of the West'. From 1967 through the late 1970s, he did a lot of work for Gold Key titles like 'Ripley's Believe it or Not', 'Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery', 'Grimm's Ghost Stories', 'The Twilight Zone' and 'UFO Flying Saucers'. Then in the 1970s, he also began working for DC, illustrating for 'House of Mystery', 'House of Secrets', 'The Witching Hour' and 'Jonah Hex'. He additionally contributed to the horror publications of Skywald and Warren.

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I Get Asked The Oddest Things

 Two chats recently and both around the same subject so as I am currently in between things I'll not answer as much as explain.  Steve (from a comic site I will not mention -nothing bad ):

"You are the biggest Independent publisher of black and white comics and graphic novels so why are you never at any events in Bristol?"  

 Well, I'll explain. I was asked to be at one Bristol event in recent years. Here is how it was pitched to me after a lot of ego stroking (which is wasted on me):

"You publish so much and you've been going since the 1980s so you are a Bristol institution and we would like you to come to our event to sell your books as a featured guest"

Sounded fine. Then...."the table will cost £250 and it's 6 by 3"  So I said I was honored they were going to pay that much for a table for me.  "uh...no. You'd need to pay for the table" -obviously they had never heard sarcasm before. So, no, I did not attend.  

Another for which I applied for a table got me this response: "You publish niche black and white books as well as proper books but we can't see you fitting in at the event".  Ahem, "proper books" they mean the wildlife and world mystery books and they could have said "prose" but what the heck. Small Press events I rarely get invited to since at two I was told that my titles looked "too high end and professional".

Yes, Black Tower has been going since 1984 (although I put stuff out in 1983) and I am the largest publisher of black and white Independent comics, comic albums and graphic novels BUT that gets me no favours.  I cannot and would never demand a table at an event but think about this: you have to sell £250+ of books to cover the table costs alone which means no profit. Big profit for the organisers but not the seller.  If I travel to sell then there is the table cost and travelling, food and overnight stay to cover. NO ONE sells that many books at an event -which is why most sellers are hobbyists who do not think about making money.

There. 

Cinebook Ltd: Amazonia 1 - Episode 1 and 2

 

Authors: LEO & Rodolphe; illustrated by Bertrand Marchal
Age: 15 years and up
Size: 18.4 x 25.7 cm
Number of pages: 48 colour pages
Publication: April 2024

£7.99 inc VAT

 ISBN: 9781800441316
 

Brazil, 1949. A photographer crawls into a mission deep in the Amazonian rainforest and dies. On one of his films is an extraordinary shot: a man with skin white as snow and an elongated cranium. Deformed human … or extra-terrestrial being? Kathy Austin, having reluctantly become the specialist in such situations, is immediately sent by the crown to investigate. But the British aren’t the only ones with an interest in the bizarre creature …

Authors: LEO & Rodolphe; illustrated by Bertrand Marchal
Age: 15 years and up
Size: 18.4 x 25.7 cm
Number of pages: 48 colour pages
Publication: August 2024
 £7.99 incl VAT

ISBN: 9781800441408

On the trail of the bizarre, potentially alien creature photographed in Brazil, Kathy Austin has reached the isolated mission where the photographer died. Unfortunately, the road forward leads into the heart of the rainforest and the territory of extremely hostile natives. Continuing will be difficult and dangerous, especially as she appears to be followed by a number of people including two suspicious Germans … and the Brazilian Navy! 

It may seem that I am late on these reviews but the books were listed and sold out on some sites by the time my review copies arrived. So, I am still reviewing as received.

The art in these two volumes is excellent and exactly what one comes to expect in these series and Marchal does an excellent job and Sebastien Bouet on colours just adds even more.  Leo and Rodolphe are as good as ever on script, dialogue and overall story telling.  The tall guy with the big head...Alien or something else?  We are kept guessing.

I do have a problem with this type of series, though.  Volumes 1 and 2 arrived together so the story draws you in but...how long before volume 3?  We know there are 5 volumes in this story but the important thing is delays between books as that can kill the buzz you get and in the past long delays have meant that my aged brain has to be back and read previous volumes to remember why someone wants to kill someone else.

And as I have mentioned volumes did you know Kathy Austin, the heroine of this series, and a British secret agent, has tackled the weird before?  Oh yes; in the 5 volume Kenya and 5 volume Namibia series.

It's good old fashioned adventure combined with spies and science fiction -the type of story that the late John Creasey used to write in his Z5 Dr Palfrey series from the 1940s on (he also created The Baron, Gideon of the Yard (developed into TV series) and many others). I would recommend Kenya and Namibia and as Amazonia are the continuing adventures of Austin...yeah, buy them and see how good comics are made.

2024 (another ) Avengers Annual 1

 

Let's be brief.

No. Thanos does NOT fight alongside the Avengers.  

The only Avengers in this book are Thor and Captain Marvel who are literally there for filling and making this an 'Avengers' title.  

The rest of the Avengers are all stuck on their "easier to get to world emergencies space city" because transporters are out.  Yes, the only Avengers in the entire Marvel Universe (in which every hero or anti hero is a standby or active roster Avengers) are stuck in space until they tell Thor in the last panel "We can beam down now". It is that lame.

This is, as it becomes very obvious and at warp speed, an Infinity Watch Preview. WTF are the Infinity Watch? I could not give a toss. Every single member of, no doubt, "Marvels latest sensation", were so badly characterised and acting like petty teenagers with dialogue that at times made the 1960s MLJ Mighty Crusaders comics look like Shakespeare writing at his best (no, William Shakespeare did not write for MLJ -Archie Comics- in the 1960s). 

 All I could think was that these were badly written throw-away characters for the plot and when they were being killed off I uttered the words "best move to date" but, of course, they all came back in the end.

I did use the word "plot" back there.  That made it seem that someone had sat down and written a good story.  They had not. No characterisation, no real action that was worthwhile and no Avengers (well, just two).  I even started asking myself whether the writer had ever seen or read anything with Thanos in before.

In recent years Avengers annuals have mostly all been number 1s (well of course they have because Marvel assumes that everyone buying comics is so dumb they cannot count beyond 1).

I have all the Avengers Silver and Bronze ages annuals as well as King Size and do you know what is in them?   Avengers (it sort of went with the title). Also, characterisation, plot and good dialogue. And they had fun and action in them.  Okay, modern writers (as we shall call them) get their literary education through TV, You Tube and movies. They obviously do not read books or anything that teaches them the basics.  The old writers got inspiration from movies but their major influences were literature. They read the classics, they read mythology and they were highly literate and good at what they did. Kirby was massively influenced by mythology and as he pointed out several times, Lee was a classics guy and the Thing joking about the words Reed Richards used was basically an in-joke (Lee being Richards and Kirby being Ben Grimm).

What we have with the 2024 Avengers annual is something with no merit or value. And this is what Marvel has done to its once proud flag ship title (with Fantastic Four fairing a little better).

The actual monthly Avengers title goes from fairly readable to piss poor and ....Marvel doesn't care. They are all getting pay cheques so can sit back and be lazy. This current book, as an annual, would never have even gotten through as a rough draft in the good days of creative Marvel.

Those days are gone.

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