Comics Review: Grimm, Killjoys, and BPRD Vampire

I have three series here where I am getting in on the ground floor. With two of them I was invested before they even happened, and the third is one more connection to ICAF.

Overall, this is kind of exciting for me. I am not catching up on anything; I am completely even with the other readers. This means, though, that I also have to wait; I can't just pull up the next issues to find what happens. There's a little bit of torture there, but there's something kind of cool about that too.

One thing I have found with these, though, is that I want physical copies, not digital, and waiting for Killjoys to come in the mail took almost a week. This means I am going to have to start ordering and picking up at the comic book shop.

Or maybe I don't need to order, but just stop by on Wednesdays for new comic book night. Big Bang Theory didn't make that up; it's a real thing. And despite my earlier protestation of not having time for another social thing in my life, I may now be participating in an additional facet of comic book culture. There is a Things From Another World in Beaverton; I can work with that.

On with the reviews!

BPRD Vampire (Dark Horse Comics): Story by Mike Mignola, Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon, with art by Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon, colors by Dave Stewart, and letters by Clem Robins.

In 1948, Simon Anders, of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, has had two malevolent vampire sisters locked inside of him, and the dreams and memories are changing him. He departs for post-war Czechoslovakia to destroy any vampires he can find.

They had free comics at ICAF, and there were still some left at the end of the conference, which included copies of the first two issues of this series. I liked them, liked the people involved, and it is only going to be a 5 issue run, so I already had 40% of the series. It was just very logical to stick with it.

Therefore I bought issue #3 when it came out, digitally, and whoa! I mean, I kind of thought that I knew where things were going, and it is very clear that I do not. Things are much more complicated than I realized, and I guess if this is the middle the momentum building and plot arc is set at about the right pace, and I do admire all of that, but I am not focusing on that so much as on what is going on and how is this going to turn out? Really, though, that's as it should be. What day does #5 come out again? (Just kidding. I totally know it's July 31st.)

Grimm (Dynamite Comics): Plot by Jim Kouf and David Greenwalt, script by Marc Gaffen and Kyle McVey, art by José Malaga, colors by Thiago Dal Bello, and letters by Marshall Dillon.

Portland Police Officer Nick Burkhardt learns that he is a Grimm, able to see that people are not always as they seem. It adds a new element to his crime-fighting, and it puts him in more danger, but it has also given him some friends.

I anticipated a Grimm comic some time ago. I anticipated it being done by Dark Horse, but also I imagined it still being a few years off, after the series ended, because that's how they do it, right? And then the canon of the series informs the comic? The shows just wrapped up Season 2. (Though, I had thought that maybe they could do a spin-off now, Wesen, about the Portland Wesen community.)

Anyway, no, they have a series starting now, with issue #2 just out this month, and yet
I can see how it can work without conflicting with the series, and it seems promising. I'm sure the close cooperation of the series creators helps.

The balance of explanation for those who might not watch the show, along with moving quickly for those who do not need it, is reasonable. It flows, basically. Also, the artwork is good, with a lot of action.

Nick isn't as handsome on the page as he is on the screen, but that may be an impossibly high standard.

The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Dark Horse Comics): Script by Gerard Way and Shaun Simon, Art by Becky Cloonan, Colors by Dan Jackson, and Letters by Nate Piekos of Blambot.

Obviously there was no doubt at all that I would get this and be all over it. I'm a fan of the people involved, I'm a fan of the album it relates to, and I was so inspired by said album that I wrote my own 427 page script about it, and am starting another creative project inspired by it next month. Most of the changes in my life over the last 16 months have in one way or another come from the album that is intertwined with this book! But how would it be finally getting my hands on the comic itself?

Actually, it's a bit confusing on the first read, and then more clear on the second. There's a lot going on with the different plot threads, and this is the just the first chapter. It is world-building, with a world seemingly quite different from our own (though possibly not different enough).

It is also a beautiful world, between Cloonan's art and Jackson's colors. The palette used is not super-bright, which would not fit the tone, but there are spots that are just luminous, and it all balances really well, with some glorious depictions of light. You could easily miss the sunrise, but don't.

Of course, the appearance wouldn't matter if the story didn't hold up, but I'm not worried about that. Right now there is already real feeling, and characters you can care about. I trust the writers, that the disparate threads will come together into a whole that pays off. I'm pretty sure there will be some grief on the way. That's okay too. Art should make us feel, and grief is as real as any other emotion, possibly more than some.