Planetary

 

 What if the Fantastic Four turned bad? We’ll come back to this…

Planetary is a comic series published by Wildstorm comics from 1998 to late 1999. Despite that lengthy period it consists of only twenty-seven regular issues, three crossover issues and an introductory short. It was written by Warren Ellis, drawn by John Cassaday and coloured by Laura Martin. It’s set in the Wildstorm Universe (which has since been assimilated into the DC Universe) but in actuality has very little to do with the company’s established characters or titles. It’s a thematic successor to Ellis’s run on Stormwatch and The Authority.

The series focuses on the Planetary field team. Comprised of Elijah Snow, a man who can subtract heat form the atmosphere, Jakita Wagner, a woman blessed with super strength, and The Drummer, who has complete control over all technology, they’re tasked with uncovering the secret history of their world. That sounds a little broad, and it is. It’s basically the creative team’s excuse for the team getting involved in the plots they do. They have unlimited resources and answer only to the mysterious Fourth Man, the identity of whom becomes one of first of many mysteries in the series.

This is a completely accurate summary but it also fails to do Planetary justice. There’s so much more to the title.

The central conceit of Planetary is Ellis’s use of history to create a world of wonder. There’s an ongoing plot threat and a few loose arcs but all but two of the issues are self-contained stories (the two that aren’t are a two part story). This allows Ellis much more creative freedom than the traditional approach does. There’s no regular base or lengthy, convoluted explanations about how bad guys that were definitely killed last time we saw them are able to return.

Ellis makes use of a number of literary sources for Planetary. Issue two, for example, draws heavily on the tradition of Japanese monster movies. Issue eight is a cross between Cold War paranoia and fifties B movies. Australian creation myths are the basis of much of issue fifteen, although John Carter of Mars is also a source of inspiration for that issue. That should hint at how broad the series can be even within one issue. Action movies, Sherlock Holmes, The (Steed and Peel) Avengers, Norse mythology, and the X Files all provide ideas for Ellis at various points too. It’s an eclectic mixture of literature, pop culture, TV shows, and, of course, comic book history.

It sounds incredibly busy but it’s all perfectly judged, the sources never overshadow the central plot or the characters Ellis has created. Ellis uses the fiction we’re all familiar with as a storytelling shorthand. It’s a little like Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, only broader in its reach and less focused on using the sources it uses as the centre point of its tale.

And I’ve yet to mention the comic book sources Ellis draws from. Throughout the series characters appear that are clearly based on characters from Marvel and DC, names changed partly because of legal reasons and partly because Ellis presents them, to a greater or lesser extent, as alternate versions of those established characters. He’s more interested in subverting the known aspects of the characters than the characters themselves, which is a healthy approach to take. We see Nick Fury, Captain Marvel, John Constatine, and Spider Jerusalem reimagined, and the work of several comic book greats referenced, most obviously and frequently Jack Kirby.

And then there are The Four. They’re the Fantastic Four done as though they were bad guys. The starting point for the idea was an issue Ellis has with the Marvel version of the group: they have great powers, resources and inventions but use them only to fight bad guys. There’s no attempt from the group to better mankind. That becomes a central idea of Ellis’s Four.

We see them slaughter the population of an entire planet just so they have somewhere to store their immense weapons collection. We discover that they created they internet (although it’s never actually revealed why). Most notably we see them eliminate Wildstorm versions of Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern before they can have any positive influence on Earth. And none of this is done for the sake of it. By the time Planetary finishes we know exactly what motivated The Four and how and why they’ve done what they’ve done.

Understanding all of this in relation to the source material is obviously fun and adds another level on which to enjoy the book. If you don’t recognise something enough to know what the source material was you stil follow what’s going on within the context of the tale. You aren’t isolated because of ignorance but knowledge and understanding of pop culture and comic books specifically is rewarded.

I would like to add that the creativity is not limited to the stories told within Planetary. The covers are an integral part of the book’s experience, mirroring as they do the chief themes and inspirations of their contents (see the selection posted at the top of this review. Issue 23, for example, is the pulp heroes story, its cover done up to emulate a cheap disposable paperback from the thirties. The John Constantine issue perfectly replicates the original style of Vertigo titles. Meanwhile issue fifteen evokes ancient Australasian tribe art. The covers alone contribute more to the stories Ellis and Cassaday tell than most authors pack into twenty-plus page issues. 

Cassaday’s artwork is just as important to the book’s success as Ellis’s writing. A lesser artist (and there are many) would have been incapable of transferring Ellis’s more outlandish ideas to the page. There are few artists who could have produced work that was one moment awe inspiring and the next detailing the unspoken emotions of an office drone. Cassaday perfectly captures The Drummer’s neuroses and skittishness, Jakita’s confident swagger (just look at the perfect panel at the bottom of issue eight’s twelfth page), and Elijah’s deliberate pondering. In lesser hands this could have become just another superhero book. Cassaday helps it to become something incredibly special.

The links to the Wildstorm Universe start out infrequent and vague and are pretty much gone by the halfway point of the series. That’s no bad thing. Ellis does more to create a cohesive history for this fictional universe in Planetary than everyone else had done combined. Instead of trying to make everything tie together he focuses on threads he’d started up in other books. Such as the century babies.

Anyone who’s read The Authority will be familiar with the idea of a group of people with special powers sharing the birthday of January 1^st 1900. That’s elaborated on in Planetary, although ultimately we’re left with more answers than questions on the topic. The concept could very easily support a comic series in its own right. It’s a testament to Ellis as a writer that he hasn’t ruined the mysterious air he worked hard to cultivate by taking on such a project. The idea works best when used as an unresolved thread in the background.

With Planetary Ellis wanted to reintroduce wonder and discovery into comics, something he (rightly) felt had disappeared from comics throughout the course of the late eighties and the nineties. He essentially writes Planetary as a creator owned title and uses the Wildstorm Universe as little more than a backdrop. It’s not something that could have been done with the continuity heavy worlds of Marvel or DC. It works here because Wildstorm is (or was now, I suppose) so much younger as a company. Ellis gave it an identity of its own with this title, and wrote a series that will be enjoyed for a very long time. You could not hope for a more inventive comic.

Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid On Earth

Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid On Earth is not the sort of comic book I usually read. I tend to like things with superpowers and fights and characters that first appeared fifty years ago. Jimmy Corrigan is none of these things. For starters it’s probably one of the few books in the world that could accurately be described as a graphic novel in the non-pretentious usage of the term.

It’s a depressing story about a socially awkward man who lives alone and has very little contact with other people. He has an overbearing mother, has never met his father, and doesn’t know how to talk to women. The sense of loneliness is clear from the very beginning and becomes more evident as you witness the isolated existence Corrigan has and see flashbacks to his equally remote childhood.

The story that unfolds across the book is pretty simple to summarise. Corrigan meets his estranged father for the first time and is sparked into doing a handful of things outside of his usual routine. What makes this generic story worth reading are the details that writer-artist Chris Ware includes. Watching Corrigan mumble his way through scenes, seeing other people judge and pity him, is heart-breaking.

Depressing as it is the book is popular. I think this is because of how relatable and sympathetic the central character and his problems are. The book doesn’t shy away from upsetting its readers. When so many comics these days are more concerned with working in references to a crossover arc that happened twenty years ago than giving readers something to invest in emotionally Jimmy Corrigan is something to be cherished. It’s also something that has an appeal beyond the average comic book reader, which can’t have hindered sales either.

In all honesty I suspect the greatest reason for the book’s success is Chris Ware’s artwork. He works with graphic design tools such as rulers, T squares and compasses to produce precise, geometrical artwork. Sometimes he’ll dedicate an entire page to one panel, drawing a scene of a wrecked city, a sprawling harbour or a group of people sitting in stands. Other times he’ll crisscross his page with dozens of tiny panels and cram an impossible about of story into a small area. It’s the smaller approach that I prefer. It allows Ware to tell stories visually rather than relying on cumbersome dialogue bubbles stuffed with exposition.

Just leafing through the book you can come across some interesting visual points of interest. Old fashioned ads for fictitious brands litter the panels of the book, joined occasionally by a picture of an infant Jimmy striding across a landscape eating tiny people or a cutout page that allows you to make a miniature model paper house. If you get the hardback edition of the book (Jimmy Corrigan is a rare example of a book that’s kept in print in both hardback and paperback) you get some unadvertised extras. The inside of the front and back covers and covered with small text detailing Ware’s views on comic books and the history of writing Jimmy Corrigan. Pulling off the dust jacket reveals more stories that can be glanced through (I say glanced because there are no words and you can’t read pictures). One side is dedicated to the history of the Corrigan family, the other to the endless tedium that comes with being Jimmy Corrigan. It’s easily worth the extra couple of quid.

Chris Ware is fantastic at creating work that evokes a sense of exploration and discovery. His artwork can’t simply be read. It has to be pored over in order to uncover every last detail. Jimmy Corrigan is his most lauded work and entirely deserving of being so.

Sin City

Considering the nature of comics it’s surprising how often artwork gets overlooked. Good artwork gets pointed out, yes, as does bad artwork. But that’s praising or chastising the quality of someone’s work. It’s not looking at art as something that contributes to the overall feel of a comic. I think this is because all too often artwork doesn’t really add to a comic’s themes. It’s almost always there just to give form to the words of the author.

Take Watchmen, for example. Dave Gibbons deserves, and usually gets, just as much credit for the book’s success as does writer Alan Moore. Without Gibbons Watchmen would not be the book that it is but it would not be as different as it would be without Moore. With another writer it could have succeeded to the same degree. It might even have been better.

The point is that what Dave Gibbons did with Watchmen was sterling work, but he did nothing that couldn’t have been done by somebody else. He worked from a script written by Moore. That could have been done by anyone, professional artist or not. Watchmen’s art is good, but there is nothing about it that cultivates a feeling that Watchmen achieves something no other comic could have. The script may do that. The art does not.

Sin City is different because of its art. Writer-artist Frank Miller makes artistic choices that set the series apart from everything that came before it. The book would have worked just as well had another artist provided the visuals (Dave Gibbons, for example) but had they not made the choices Miller did the books would just be fairly well written crime capers.

So what are these artistic choices? Well, Sin City is drawn almost exclusively in black and white. This allows Miller to achieve a couple of things. Firstly, it evokes the feeling of crime noir films, all clever lighting and moody shadows. Even those who have never sat through a crime noir film will be aware of the visual cues the genre is known for as they’ve become common on film and television. Keeping his pages black and white allows Miller to make easy use of these cues himself.

The second thing working in monochrome (can art be monochrome?) lets Miller do is make clever use of colour. Every so often a character will be drawn partially coloured. In Daddy’s Little Girl it’s the titular girl appearing in pink, helping to establish a sense of femininity and helplessness for the titular girl. Blue Eyes sees streetwalker Delia drawn with blue clothes to match her famed blue eyes. Red is used sparingly in another tale to emphasise the lipstick and slinky dress of an unnamed femme fatale. The most extravagant use comes in Hell and Back where it’s used to depict the hyper reality of an LSD trip. It’s a fantastic approach to drawing a comic that creates a wonderful “feel” for the books.

Of course, looking at the examples in the last paragraph you may notice one of the book’s major downfalls. It’s fairly sexist. Women are depicted as either objects for men to lust after and fight over or battle-hardened Amazonian prostitute warriors. There is no middle ground and it’s noticeable. Male characters are slotted neatly (but less offensively) into camps too. They’re either corrupt officials or hard drinkin’ PIs with women troubles and hearts of gold.

But Sin City saves itself from being a vehicle for Miller’s rampant misogyny and right wing zeal by being a thoroughly good read. The misogyny and zeal are present throughout but they’re made just about acceptable because Miller is, with Sin City, striving to create a world without hope, overrun by greed and ruled with fear. His disturbing world views make him incredibly good at that.

All of Sin City’s seven volumes are set in the titular city. Its full name is Basin City, the B and A having been dropped by the locals when they realised the corruption had set in. Across the various stories Miller creates a fascinating metropolis. Characters reappear throughout, civic leaders are shown, and the various neighbourhoods are shown. Miller is creative when conjuring backstories for these areas and displays a knack for naming them too. He even sketches out the history of Basin City itself. It’s a compelling display of world building.

Characters deliver their internal monologues in short bursts, which helps it to be read in the staccato fashion you’d see in films. As mentioned, every male character seems motivated, in some manner, by his love for a woman. And practically every character a story focuses on is a cop or PI. If they’re not they probably meet one during the course of their yarn. But as repetitive as it is it never gets boring, I suspect because, being comics, they can be read quickly enough to not outstay their welcome.

For all its faults Sin City is a fantastic achievement in the world of comic books. It’s something that established its own visual style while at the same time evoking TV and film and drawing inspiration from comics of the past such as Will Eisner’s The Spirit. A visual style that borrows from film and TV is often taken for granted with modern comics, but it was a far rarer occurrence when Miller started this. If the black and white views on the sexes didn’t match the black and white art Sin City would be about as good as it gets. As it is it comes pretty close.

Astonishing X-Men

Long before Joss Whedon gave us the phenomenally successful Avengers movie he wrote for Marvel's other high profile team, the X-Men. It was a risk, for both him and Marvel. Despite the fact that he'd spent much of the previous decade showrunning juggernaut TV hits Buffy and Angel, as well as the decidedly less commercially successful Firefly, Whedon was an unknown quantity in comics.

There was no guarantee that his skills would transfer away from their televisual home. He was also brought in to follow on from Grant Morrison's run as the de facto lead writer of the X-Men, Astonishing replacing Morrison’s popular New X-Men. Whedon was and is a bigger name in the general media than Morrison, but Morrison's name meant more to comic book buyers and there was no guarantee Whedon's fan base would carry over with him.

The decision turned out to be a good one. Whedon’s experience with writing Buffy and Angel, both of which are ensemble pieces despite their misleading titles, meant he knew how to write a team book like X-Men. Under Whedon each character has a distinct voice and understandable motives. Wolverine, for example, is mostly depicted as liking a beer and being very comfortable with his reputation as an intimidating killer. Cyclops, on the other hand, is a boy scout with an inferiority complex. Both could run the risk of being unoriginal but Whedon’s spin ensures that’s not the case thanks to well-timed moments of humour and pathos.

Despite having big name characters like Wolverine, Cyclops and Emma Frost to play with it’s Kitty Pryde at the centre of much of the story. Whedon displays an almost Warren Ellis-level of obsession with the character (read anything featuring her written by Ellis to see what I mean by this). It’s annoying with Ellis because it comes off as fetishisation whereas Whedon seems more interested in doing something new with an established character and her power of phasing.

Whedon also devotes a lot of time, particularly in early issues, to Ord of the Breakworld. He’s an alien villain introduced as one of the central antagonists of the series. Anyone who’s watched Buffy (yes, another reference to that show, sorry) will recognise Ord as a Whedon villain: a big threatening villain who has an understandable motivation for his beef with the X team, who gets shown to be mildly inept after his impressive initial appearance. Whedon’s never afraid to send up his bad guys but he does so with love: Ord is far from a one note villain or a glorified gag.

All of Whedon’s screen output is known for its snappy dialogue. The knack carries over to comics well. If he found it a struggle to limit the amount of dialogue he could give his characters, because he’s limited by the size of the page, it doesn’t show. Everything flows very naturally and his trademark moments of humour are alive and well. He loves the funnies, does Joss.

Of course, John Cassaday’s artwork doesn’t hurt. His clean, crisp line work and instantly recognisable characters make reading the book a joy. Having an artist who’s just as good at action sequences as he is at quiet exposition scenes is of real benefit to a writer like Whedon. Had he been paired up with Ed McGuinness things would have been very different.

On the subject of exposition scenes it’s worth mentioning the use of the danger room and the “thought space” of various psychic characters. Sometimes these are used for sight gags (Emma Frost enduring a particularly bumpy ride through space in a tea room, for example) while other times they’re used to add some colour to what would otherwise be bland infodumping scenes. They’re nice touches.

Sadly all of the witty dialogue, great artwork and solid characterisation is let down by a somewhat disappointing story. Things start off well with a six issue plot detailing the development of a cure for the X gene and continue being enjoyable when the danger room becomes sentient and reveals its plan to kill the X-Men.

The third arc is where things begin to go wrong. At first we’re led to believe the Hellfire Club have returned. That’s revealed to be wrong halfway through volume three, the villain instead being revealed as Cassandra Nova, one of the main antagonists of Morrison’s New X-Men. The fourth and final arc falls apart almost completely, as the background plot from the previous issues takes centre stage and the X-Men head off into outer space alongside SWORD supremo Agent Brand for an intergalactic showdown on the Breakworld.

Personal taste is part of the reason for my dislike of the fourth and final arc: the Marvel universe has a large enough number of concepts as it is without introducing aliens too. This is not Whedon’s fault, aliens have long been a part of the Marvel Universe. It’s just that their inclusion tends to make me lose interest. My feeling is that if people want to write about aliens in comics they should simply set up a creator-owned piece somewhere. There’s plenty of material in Marvel with the various superheroes, fictional countries and the worldwide problem of the X gene. Aliens serve to muddy the waters and on some level just feel a bit lazy.

The final arc lets itself down in other areas too. New characters are introduced at a rapid pace, making it hard to keep track of the plot. And scenes featuring Marvel’s large cast of regulars all crammed into an X book feels a little too self-indulgent for my taste. It’s as though Whedon’s decided that as this may be his only time working for Marvel (he was wrong there) he wants to use everyone he possibly can. All the positives of the early issues remain, but they’re not as prominent as they were.

Whedon and Cassaday’s Astonishing X-Men is a lovely looking piece of work that demonstrates everything you’d expect from both an X-Men book and something written by the man who brought you Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Reading this it’s clear he’s a fan of comics and Marvel in particular. If you can put up with a fudged ending it’s well worth a look. If you’re already a Whedon fan then you won’t even be bothered by the ending: you’ll enjoy the series regardless.

Faction Paradox

I should probably preface this review with a brief explanation. Faction Paradox is a franchise-cum-brand that span off from the BBC’s line of Doctor Who novels in the early 2000s. They were a time travelling cult that, unsurprisingly, aimed to create paradoxes throughout time. They dressed in latex outfits with bones strapped to them and made blood sacrifices. The time travel bit’s the most important, but mentioning everything else helps give an accurate idea of what’s being dealt with.

The Faction was created by a guy called Lawrence Miles and were intended to be semi-recurring characters in that line of books. When other authors started, to paraphrase Miles, writing them wrong he withdrew them from the BBC’s line and established them in their own.

Doing that involved a fair bit of creativity on his part. While the Faction, its characters and their War were his intellectual property their surroundings were not. They were firmly a part of the BBC’s Doctor Who franchise, which would return to television to some critical acclaim a couple of years after Miles left. That necessitated Miles restructuring the bits of Doctor Who history pertinent to Faction Paradox (most notably Time Lords and TARDISes) so that he could use them.

That led to The Book of the War, a reference book for the Faction. That in turn led to a series of novels (only one of which Miles wrote before either becoming bored or falling out with the publishers) and audios. Those were followed by a comic book deal being signed.

All of this should give you an idea of how incredibly niche the Faction Paradox comic was. It was a spinoff of what was at the time an old, ropey BBC kids show that had first appeared in a handful of books. The number of people who would have even been aware of what Faction Paradox was when the comics hit the shelves was marginal. The number of those people who’d have cared upon recognising what they were looking at was smaller still.

Making things even tougher for the comic was the fact that no concessions were made for newcomers. It got cancelled after two issues due to horrendous sales. Those were surely the result of the generally impenetrable nature of the book and the tiny target market.

When I sat down to read the two issues I’d read only one or two of the BBC novels in which they originally appeared. I hadn’t read the reference book or any of the novels. I had however read various Wikipedia entries on them and several interviews with Lawrence Miles and was well-versed enough in Doctor Who mythology to cope with any references that could crop up with regards to that.

Even with this decent amount of knowledge I found issue one a tough read.

Clearly there would have been people out there more familiar with Faction Paradox than me and they no doubt would have understood exactly what was going on and picked up on every cryptic remark made by the seemingly endless parade of enigmatic mystiques. But those aren’t the people who should be written to. Even my relatively small amount of knowledge shouldn’t have been catered to.

The book failed because it didn’t start from scratch. Hints and teases should have been dropped in regarding the nature of Faction Paradox. Had the “time travelling voodoo cult” (the internet’s favourite, and largely misleading, way of quickly describing them) image been cultivated a little more and the Faction members been kept as mysteries in the background I think issue one could have done a little better. It was always going to be a book unlikely to gain success but its best chance at doing so would have been to give newcomers enough of a reason to be interested enough to pick up issue two.

The plot is fairly hard to sum up. In fairness this is partly because only two issues exist so there were likely things that would have come to light in issue three and beyond. The general shape of the story hints at something involving the Faction, the British Empire, the fledging United States and a time paradox being created. What exists is, to all intents and purposes, gibberish that gives nobody sane any reason to want any more.

For anyone previously aware of the spinoff franchise and desperate for anything related to it I imagine those two issues were a real treat and that the cancellation came as a blow. There was potential there for comics to be the medium that carried Faction Paradox forward. To anyone with a passing knowledge and interest, or no idea of what faction Paradox were at all, they’re a frustrating read. I’d suggest buying them on eBay if you’re a Faction Paradox fan, but the likelihood is that if you’re a fan you already own them and if you’re not you don’t want to.

Grant Morrison's Animal Man

I’d like to start by saying that Animal Man is very good. It’s quite possibly the best thing I’ve read written by Grant Morrison. I’ve noted before that he has a habit of going overboard when writing and that spoils his otherwise very interesting concepts and ideas. It happens here. He goes overboard just as much as he does in Doom Patrol or The Invisibles but nothing is spoilt.

Animal Man, as written by Morrison, was originally meant to be a four issue mini-series revolving around a character who hadn’t been used by DC for years. Those first four issues aren’t actually terribly enjoyable. Nor are they noticeably bad. They exist simply as perfectly average issues that, had they not been written by Morrison would be completely unmemorable. They tell a fairly convoluted story featuring an African superhero with the power to meld animals together saving a monkey from a science lab.

For whatever reason those in charge of DC’s Vertigo imprint were suitably impressed by that tale and decided to offer Morrison money in exchange for sticking with the character. It was after that initial tale wrapped up that Morrison became more experimental with the Animal Man and the comic in general, finally hitting his stride with the title.

There are two big themes running throughout Morrison’s Animal Man. The first is animal rights. It’s a subject Morrison felt very strongly about (and presumably still does). Writing a character called Animal Man was always going to make animal cruelty and related issues an obvious subject to tackle. Morrison does addresses the issues better than most would do in a comic.

We see the horror of scientific experimentation, the thuggish brutality of some of the more militaristic animal rights movements, and the full, titanic scale of the problems clumped under the “animal abuse” umbrella. The point is made more than once that it’s not just animal abuse that’s the problem, it’s humanity’s treatment of the planet in general. It’s a subject very well handled considering the space limitations of the medium, not to mention the fact that not all his time and energy are dedicated to the topics.

The other theme is what Animal Man is probably most well-known for under Morrison. That is the metafictional nature of his writing on the book.

Famously the final issue depicts a meeting between Animal Man and his then-current writer. During this Morrison admits that he feels their conversation is anti-climactic. He has so much to say and not enough space to say it. Towards the end the writer conjures up some humorous bad guys for Animal Man to fight so he can spend a page thanking artists, colourers, letters, and editors. He then takes the memory of the meeting away and sends Buddy Baker back to his fictional world to reunite with his resurrected family.

That final issue is the famous and obvious example of Animal Man being metafictional under Morrison but there’s so much more to it than that. Hints at what Morrison’s building to are dropped into his run very early. It doesn’t just come out of nowhere. You can go through and trace Morrison’s plan from the first collected volume of the book. This is not something you can praise his work with these days. Back in the eighties he was still conscientious enough to construct plots that could be followed by someone who doesn’t have a PhD in comics’ lore.

Morrison seems keen to look at the nature of readers’ relationship with fiction, and comics specifically. He looks extensively at the concept and rules of continuity, with the then-recent Crisis on Infinite Earths being referenced multiple times. Characters see the reader numerous times throughout the book and Morrison introduces a number of characters, both major and minor, who are aware of their fictional status. Sometimes these things are played as serious and sometimes they’re gags. It’s a fascinating idea and one that Morrison has returned to throughout his career. He has arguably never been as good at saying what he has to on it as he is on Animal Man.

As is always the case with Morrison his work is far from perfect. The plot falls apart briefly in the middle. Most of the second volume is a bit of a muddle at the start thanks to a multi-issue arc focusing on a trip to Africa. Part of the reason this doesn’t work is that Morrison spends most of the rest of his time on the book writing standalone entries with character led side plots providing most of the linking material between issues. It’s jarring when a story isn’t wrapped up in twenty-four pages.

This is the first major work of Morrison’s career. Considering his status it would probably be worth looking at even if it was a complete mess. But it’s not a mess. It’s an incredibly well-planned, thoughtful, and creative book that shows how good Morrison is when he’s on form. It’s a book that anyone with an interest in comics as a medium should definitely make time to read.

Neverwhere

In 1995 the BBC announced they'd hired an up and coming young writer named Neil Gaiman to write a television series for them. Of course in 1995 Gaiman was not up and coming and was fast losing his claim to young. He'd been writing Sandman for Vertigo for six years at this point (it would conclude the following year when Neverwhere aired). He was a natural guy for the BBC to hire, but he was not a complete unknown.

Sadly several important people thought he was. That's what led to the decidedly slight budget Neverwhere received. And it was that slight budget that led to Neverwhere failing to live up to the hopes of its writer and his fans. The production just didn't have enough cash to make all of Gaiman's elaborate ideas into reality, which led to him keeping a notebook for all of the ideas he had that the show couldn't afford, jokingly telling the producer and director that he'd put an idea in the novel when he was informed of its omission.

Which is exactly what he did. If you've come across Neverwhere before it will almost certainly have been as a book. It's far more available, affordable, and well-known than the DVD of the series, aided I'm sure by Gaiman's status as a novelist who writes some TV as opposed to a TV writer who has dabbled in novels.

Both the TV series and the novel tell the story of Richard Mayhew, an Arthur Dent substitute who gets sucked into an unseen version of London (known as London Below) when he meets Door, a young girl who has the power to “open things”. The story mostly revolves around Gaiman taking the city's odd place names and reworking them, often into something more literal. This approach delivers an Earls Court that's an actual medieval court on a tube train; a street that heads straight down into the centre of the Earth and has an odd relationship with gravity; a bridge where it’s alays night; and an angel called Islington. It's the sort of thing Gaiman does quite often but because the novel was arguably the point at which he became a bankable name for publishers to associate with Neverwhere holds a special spot in his bibliography.

The comic version of Neverwhere is an adaption of the novel and not the TV series. This is because Gaiman feels happier with the novel as it contains all of his ideas. It is notably not penned by Gaiman himself. Instead his pal Mile Carey was roped in for the job, with Glenn fabry providing pencils, and Tanya and Richard Horie on colours.

This is a terribly faithful adaption, so much so that I was a little disappointed with it. Things are obviously cut from the plot in order to get the story into the nine issues (a peculiar number I thought) but for the most part the story remains intact.

It feels like a wasted chance. It's unlikely Neverwhere will ever get the comics treatment again (why would it, after being done once?) which means this was the one and only chance to build on Gaiman's creation with striking images and ideas that couldn't be afforded for the TV show or, crucially, were too outlandish to be described in prose. Gaiman writing this himself could have made it a must-read, his final iteration of a sprawling mass of concept and idea. That it is instead an adaption means that the focus is on converting ideas that already exist, rather than joyously throwing out new ones to add to an impressive creation.

The adaption has its moments though. Most are attributable to Fabry's art. He brings a sense of bustling wonder to the Floating Market, for example. The Earl, of Earl’s Court fame, looks satisfyingly ravaged by an excess of good living. Speaking of the Earl, there’s a lovely moment where a character leaps through a stain glass window in his court and comes crashing through a train window. It’s a minor moment, but one that could easily have gone wrong. The Abbey, Down Street, Islington, and the Beast and striking images too. His work is what makes the comic worthwhile in the first place. It feels like the art team are working together to emulate the work of Brian Bolland. If they weren't that's a good thing. If they weren't then it’s a happy accident.

Taken on its own terms Neverwhere is an enjoyable enough read. The artwork is excellent, so much so that it’s a wonder Fabry’s not had more work since. Ultimately, as good a comic as it is there’s little point to looking at it unless you’re a big fan of Gaiman or comics (or, I suppose, tie-in comics). It has things to offer, but don’t skip the book in favour of this. Do both.