Comic Quickies: Some Endings

Captain Swing #4 of 4:  Well, it's about fucking time!  I've been waiting for this series to conclude for quite a while now.  Not only was it about a five month wait between issue #3 and #4, but I recall buying Captain Swing #1 as my very first floppy issue purchased as an adult a little over a year and a half ago.  Yeah, that's a long time to wait for four issues.

Ellis did manage to wrap things up pretty well here, but the story definitely suffered for the long wait between issues.  For my money, the third issue was the best in the series.


Captain Swing is definitely worth a read in graphic novel format when it comes out, particularly if you're into pirates, Victorian era electro-steampunky shenanigans, good writing and solid art.

The Red Wing #4 of 4:  Unlike Captain Swing, The Red Wing came out in nice rapid-fire release style, sticking to the monthly schedule.  Unfortunately, that didn't do me a lot of good, because even with the typical gaps between installments, I still had a hard time following the story and remembering what exactly was going on.

For that reason, I would advise enjoying this tale of futuristic time-travel and intergalactic war in one sitting.  Despite my sieve-like memory, I did still enjoy this.  Have I mentioned I enjoy time-travel stories?

My one gripe for this title is Nick Pitarra's art.  I started out really liking it, but by the fourth issue, I was a bit tired of it. There wasn't much variety in the content from issue to issue, and I definitely got sick of the whole "draw every little part and piece of  some object" shtick. (Look to the cover for an example of this technique).

I'll definitely have to give this whole deal another read sometime in the future to get the full effect.

Witch Doctor #4 of 4: Winning the award for pure, crazy fun is Witch Doctor.  It's no mystery that I can't get enough of weird, crazy monsters, and Witch Doctor has been doing a real good job of providing me with my fix.

This is a title by two new creators, Brandon Seifert and Lukas Ketner, and they've each gotten better at their respective jobs with each issue.  Siefert's writing has gotten sharper with each consecutive issue, and Ketner's art seems to improve with each panel.  Each creator seems to be on a nice skyward trajectory, and I can't wait to see what they have in store next.

Though this is the end of this Witch Doctor mini-series, there is more to come soon.  There'll be a nice little Witch Doctor one-shot coming in time for the Holidays, and another mini-series coming early next year.  Hopefully they'll be able to keep the ball rolling on this fantastically weird, funny, disgusting, and exciting title.

Read and enjoy!

The Vault #3 of 3:  The whole time I was reading this final issue of The Vault, I kept thinking to myself how it was set up, and felt very much like a movie; with three distinct acts, the first which set up the situation, the second which saw everything go haywire, and the third where everything comes together.  Then I heard that The Vault had been already been optioned for film production.  Well, surprise, surprise!

I'm not sure how I feel about comics that are basically story-boards for a movie. I'm not sure that was writer's and artist's goal with The Vault, but the fact that I thought the comics had a movie script-like feel to them, then found out it was indeed going to become a movie is a pretty good indicator that ulterior motives were afoot.

Movie conspiracies or not, this was still a pretty fun comic to read.  My biggest complaint was that the evil beastie wasn't that cool looking.  I never felt like it made much of an impression as a thing to be feared.  Decent stuff here, but nothing that brings anything new to the table.  A decent read, but not one I consider must-read comics.