Reviews: Blue Beetle, Spider-Man Fairy Tales, The Spirit

Blue Beetle issue 16 “Total Eclipso: The Heart” by John Rogers (writer), Rafael Albuquerque (artist), Phil Balsman (letterer), Guy Major (colourist) and Joan Hilty (editor), cover by Cully Hamner, 22 pages of strip, US$2.99, DC Comics, August 2007

Under probably the worst punning title of the year, Rogers and Albuquerque tell a decent little superhero story. Villainous spirit Eclipso is trying to gain a new host by occupying a baby with no past experiences to act as weaknesses. She is opposed by sorceress Traci 13, who drags the Blue Beetle and his supporting cast into the fight.

Although this fits into events in DC’s current mess of interconnecting crossovers, the story is a standalone one: everything you need to know is within its pages. The only fact you might need from past DC continuity is that Eclipso’s current human host murdered Sue Dibny, wife of the Elongated Man, and that’s probably something you could infer from events. There is unselfish heroism – not just from the super-powered characters – teenage romance, banter and a handful of good jokes (especially the one about “the secret power fantasy of a teenager with an alien killing machine at his command” - Rachelle Goguen has the joke scanned if you still don't want to buy the issue). Albuquerque delivers a few jerky panel progressions, but has a particularly good command of subtle facial expressions.


This is a good, entertaining comic which relies on amusing characterisation and solid storytelling rather than shock tactics and vacuous claims that its events are “important” to those who like to catalogue the “facts” of a made-up universe. Naturally, it’s one of DC’s poorest sellers.


Spider-Man Fairy Tales issue 2 “The Spirits of Friendship” by C B Cebulski (writer), Niko Henderson (artist), Dave Landhear (letterer) and Molly Lazer (editor), 23 pages of strip, US$2.99, Marvel Comics, August 2007

This second issue of Spider-Man Fairy Tales is wholly separate from the first, drawing on West African myth rather than European household tale. God-cum-folk-hero Anansi sets off on a quest to find the spider orchid that will grant him new powers. On the way, he fights and befriends four elementals, and eventually decides that their friendship is of more value than his original aim. The Bee creature that they all kill together to get at the orchid might wish that Anansi had reached this conclusion rather earlier.

“The Spirits of Friendship” scores over the previous issue by making less use of aspects of conventional Spider-Man stories, uncomfortably shoe-horned into place. Here, the only intrusive echo of the Marvel Universe is the appearance of Anansi’s Uncle Nebasti, to remind him of the old line about great power and great responsibility. You could, if you wish, regard the four elementals as being avatars of the Fantastic Four, but this relationship is neither obvious nor forced, and can be easily ignored.

Niko Henderson provides sinuous and earthy artwork that is wholly appropriate to the tale. C B Cebulski uses a narrative voice that has something of the tone of stiff formality we associate with translations of folk tales. They may all sit together a little oddly in the eventual trade paperback, but the individual issues of this limited series are worth a look.



The Spirit issue 7, 24 pages of strip, cover by Darwyn Cooke, US$2.99, DC Comics, August 2007
Features “Harder than Diamonds” written by Walter Simonson, art by Chris Sprouse and Karl Story, colour by Dave Stewart, letters by Jared Fletcher, editor Scott Dunbier
“Synchronicity” Jimmy Palmiotti (story), Jordi Bernet (art), Dave Stewart (colours), Jared Fletcher (letters) and Scott Dunbier (editor)
“Hard Cell” by Kyle Baker (story and art), coloured by Dave Stewart, editor Scott Dunbier

For this issue, regular writer/artist Darwyn Cooke provides only a cover, which pretty much demands a soundtrack of ‘60s go-go music. Would it seem so amusing, I wonder, if it showed a crowd of hunky men stripping an attractive woman? And, if not, would that be hypocritical, or valid because the confirmation of stereotypical relationships is less pleasing than their overturn? Probably that’s too heavy a question for such a frothy image.

Simonson and Palmiotti provide their versions of two stock Spirit tropes. Simonson gives us the manipulative femme fatale, and Palmiotti writes a story of the Spirit’s actions affecting the lives of people he never meets. Despite attractive art by Sprouse, Story, Bernet and Stewart, these feel rather like Eisner pastiche by the numbers.

“Hard Cell” is a rare misfire from Kyle Baker. It seems more like a parody of Frank Miller’s Sin City than of Eisner’s or Cooke’s Spirit, complete with bad hard-boiled monologue and extreme chiaroscuro. There are some amusing jokes about the Spirit’s relationship with Ellen Dolan, but the whole story is sunk by a disjointed, fragmented narrative.

Panel of the Week

Well, okay, it’s actually two panels, but it’s one image.

And it’s well-staged, with nicely observed postures and facial expressions. But mostly, I just love the fact that, in a retro-styled adventure, Sue Storm’s reaction to the surprise appearance of Electro is not to trap him in an invincible force-field (a power she never had in the Lee/Kirby days, I think), but to sneak up and clobber him with a brick.

If there’d been a panel of Sue actually hitting him, that would have been even better, but Spider-Man fouls that up.

Oh, and isn’t it refreshing to see a super-heroine who knows how to dress up warm?


Panels
Spider-Man Family issue 3 “Electrical Problems”, written by Paul Tobin, art by Pierre Alary, colour by Jean Paul Fernandez, lettering by Blambot’s Nate Piekos, edited by Nathan Cosby, Marvel Comics, August 2007

Reviews: Atom, Detective Comics, Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, 2000AD

The All-New Atom issue 12 “Hunt for Ray Palmer” Part One “Never Too Small To Hit The Big Time” by Gail Simone (writer), Mike Norton (penciller), Dan Green (inker), Alex Breyaert, Travis Lanham and Mike Carlin (editor), cover by Ladrönn, DC Comics, August 2007, 22 pages of strip, US$2.99

Ryan Choi returns to Ivy Town from Hong Kong, to find traffic problems, a welcome home party, and an ambush.

Now, this is how superhero comics should be: revelling in the absurdity of the DC universe, Gail Simone throws in shapeshifting dummy taxidrivers, a disembodied alien head playing the sort of techno that only miniature invaders that live on the backs of dogs know how to do well, half-naked maths groupies, and a six-page demolition of the old Atom’s rogues gallery. There’s what appears to be real optical science applied to an impossible situation. The whole thing is punctuated by pages from the Ivy Town Chamber of Commerce’s “Welcome to Ivy Town!” (sample quotation: “Newly lowered radiation levels mean it’s probably okay to reproduce again!”), in a gambit reminiscent of Simone’s storytelling from Welcome to Tranquility.

Norton and Green produce some smoothly flowing and competent art (which sounds like a poor complement, but is a major improvement over some past episodes).


Only two debit points: it’s a shame that Simone has reversed her earlier stance that Dr Choi should not be a martial artist just because he’s Asian; and it’s worrying that next issue is a Countdown tie-in. If this comic turns all grim and driven by botched continuity, I shall not be happy.

Oh, and this panel is an obvious cry for attention from Chris Sims, which he has cruelly spurned.



Detective Comics issue 833 “Trust” by Paul Dini (writer), Don Kramer (penciller), Wayne Faucher (inker), Travis Lanham (letterer), John Kalisz (colourist) and Peter Tomasi (editor), cover by Simone Bianchi, DC Comics, August 2007, 22 pages of strip, US$2.99

A magician’s assistant, murdered on stage, turns out to be an old friend of Zatanna, so Batman calls her in as he tracks down the killer. (Of course, that’s “old friend” in the Murder, She Wrote sense of the term: someone we’ve never heard of before, and never will again.)

The previous issue of Detective by Dini and Kramer that I looked at seemed distinctly ordinary. But there was good reason to expect that this issue might have a bit more spark, given that Dini is himself married to a top-hatted magician, Misty Lee. (The image below is taken from her web-site.)


But this is still meat-and-potatoes stuff. Pacing, dialogue and art are all competent enough, but a bit stolid. There’s a badly staged sequence in which Batman stands right next to the killer and does nothing to stop him as he pulls a gun from the back of his waistband and shoots someone; and I disliked on principle the flashback sequence of Zatanna and Bruce Wayne meeting as children. So Zatanna is the same age as Bruce Wayne is the same age as Clark Kent is the same age as Lex Luthor … it has a flattening effect on the richness and texture of the world they inhabit.


On the other hand, Dini scores credit for an interesting murder method, and for a genuinely unexpected last-page twist – though if you look back over the previous few pages, he and the art team have led up to it with a nice precision.


Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane issue 19 “The Thoughtful Thing” by Sean McKeever (writer), David Hahn (art), Christina Strain (colours), Dave Sharpe (letters) and Mark Paniccia (editor), plus The Mini Marvels “Hulk Date” by Chris Giarrusso, cover by Miyazawa and Strain, Marvel Comics, August 2007, 26 pages of strip, US$2.99

I had heard lots of good things about this comic, so I decided to sample an issue while there were still separate issues to sample. Sean McKeever leaves after number 20, and Marvel has yet to solicit orders for any later issues.

The story: Flash Thompson is secretly working in a diner because his father is out of work. Mary Jane persuades his friends to support him in non-intrusive ways. Spider-Man asks Mary Jane’s advice about whether to agree to his girlfriend, Firestar’s, suggestion that they share secret identities. And yes, that is a metaphor.


Story and art alike are gently paced to the point of placidity, and avoid melodrama. The characters are nicely set out, and – with the obvious exception that one of them has super-powers – plausible. It’s likeable rather than fun – characters do not have the preternatural wit that we are used to in teen movies like Heathers, Clueless or Mean Girls. Generally, it would seem like a nice change of style from the over-emphatic bombast of superhero comics, except that there’s a superhero in it. Spider-Man fits into the high school relationship drama well in some ways. It was an important part of the character’s conception. But so too was an energetic physicality that is wholly missing here, as Spidey spends several pages sitting still and talking. The full-face mask also makes him unsuited to the nuances of facial expression Hahn is able to use to good effect elsewhere.

“Hulk Date” is cute and funny. Perhaps not so cute and funny that it needed to appear in at least three different Marvel Comics this week, but we’ll let that ride.



2000AD Prog 1540, cover by Jock, published by Rebellion, 6 June 2007, 29 pages of strip, £1.75
Features: Greysuit “Project Monarch” part 1 by Pat Mills (script), John Higgins (art and colours), S J Hurst (colours) and Ellie De Ville (letters)
Nikolai Dante “Thieves’ World” part 3 by Robbie Morrison (script), Simon Fraser (art), Gary Caldwell (colours) and Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Judge Dredd “Tartan Terrors” by Gordon Rennie (script), Jock (art), Chris Blythe (colours) and Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Detonator X part 7 by Ian Edginton (script), Steve Yeowell (art), Chris Blythe (colours) and Simon Bowland (letters)
Defoe “1666” part 1 by Pat Mills (script), Leigh Gallagher (art) and Ellie de Ville (letters)

This Prog launches two new series, both written by 2000AD’s creator, Pat Mills. I am always in two minds about Mills’s writing. On the one hand, it is hugely energetic – something 2000AD desperately needs right now – and Mills has the ability to create instantly iconic concepts and characters. On the other hand, he is wedded to repetitively hard-boiled hard men heroes, and writes with a sledgehammer lack of subtlety. There is none of the ambiguity that his old colleague John Wagner uses to leaven his scripts. Especially when touching on modern politics, Mills tends to be overbearingly preachy rather than slyly funny.

Of the two new series, Greysuit seems most likely to fall foul of this, as it deals with a super-powered British agent involved in Middle East politics (as the story opens, he is selling tanks to the Iranian government), but who is recovering his conscience, much to the alarm of his bosses. But it’s a well structured opening episode, and John Higgins is an ideal choice for the artwork, lending everything a convincing solidity. The fight scene is remarkably brutal.


Long-term 2000AD fans will recall that one of the series with which Mills began the comic was MACH 1, about a super-powered British agent. At first, it was a straightforward rip-off of The Six Million Dollar Man, but in time it became focused on the way in which its hero was manipulated and abused by his cynical secret service bosses. Greysuit seems to be leaping to that point from the start.

Defoe is about a zombie hunter in a version of seventeenth-century England where the Great Plague of 1666 created an infestation of the undead. In his brief appearance, our hero, Titus Defoe (presumably named after Daniel Defoe, author of The Journal of the Great Plague Year) comes across as a seventeenth century Judge Dredd – appropriately enough, as Mills originally had that name earmarked for a witch-hunter in the same period, before Wagner borrowed it for his futuristic lawman. Alhough I’m not sure that the world needs another zombie story, this is again an efficient scene setter, with a lot of violence.

Leigh Gallagher’s art spills hatching and ink splatters over solid compositions to create a highly energetic effect that makes good use of the decision to run this strip in black and white.


Elsewhere, Nikolai Dante and Detonator X continue as usual. Judge Dredd has a stand-alone encounter with a festival full of Cal-Hab residents – the Dredd version of Scotsmen, all ginger-haired, mean, drunken, kilted and fed on deep-fried food. It’s done with bounce, and both Rennie and Jock are Scots themselves, but I can’t help but wonder whether an equivalent US comic portraying African-Americans as eye-rolling cowards singing spirituals and eating watermelon might not raise an eyebrow or two, even if produced by, say, Dwayne McDuffie and Trevor Von Eeden. Oh, hold on, wasn’t that a Spike Lee movie?

Reviews: Action Comics, Gutsville, Spider-Man Fairy Tales

Action Comics issue 850 “Superman: Family” by Kurt Busiek, Fabian Nicieza and Geoff Johns (writers), Renato Guedes (pencils and colours), José Wilson Magalhães (inks), Rob Leigh (letters) and Matt Idelson (editor), cover by Renato Guedes, DC Comics, Late July 2007, 38 pages of strip, US$3.99

This is a disjointed story, as Brainiac 5 helps Supergirl, still trapped in the 31st century, use a gizmo to peer into the past, specifically picking up key moments in Superman’s life (after a few attempts showing other versions of Superman throughout the multiverse), including some previews of forthcoming attractions in the Superman comics, in the manner of issue 1 of the latest run of Justice Society of America. These fragments are used unsubtly to hammer home how lonely Superman has been until he learns that he has an actual living relative. The story doesn’t really hang together well, and the dialogue is clunky and full of forced exposition.

But that’s not the selling point here. What makes this comic worth looking at is Renato Guedes’ artwork, which combines a figurative approach as realistic as any you’ll find in comics with an almost ligne claire approach to linework and an abstinence from black shading. The unusual distribution of work on the art, with Guedes handling colour as well as pencils (but not inks), is crucial, as all the weight of the pictures comes from the colour modelling.


Guedes is taking over as the regular artist on Supergirl later this year. Numerous bloggers have already praised his advance sketches for showing a Supergirl who looks like a real person in real (if odd) clothes rather than the half-naked distended sex object who has populated the title’s pages since its revival. This issue of Action Comics suggests that there are more reasons than that to keep an eye on his work.


Gutsville issue 1 “Part One: Ingestion” by Simon Spurrier (story) and Frazer Irving (art and letters), plus appendices “A List of Oddities and Curiosities” by Ray Fawkes (text) and Fiona Staples (illustrations), “Gutsville Map” by Simon Spurrier, “The Butler and the Bolt: A Gutsville Mystery” by Simon Spurrier (story) and Simon Gurr (illustrations), Image Comics, May 2007, 22 pages of strip plus 9 pages of appendices, US$2.99

Gutsville tells the story of a community living in the belly of a colossal sea creature, which swallowed their ship 157 years earlier (or so the prologue tells us: the clothes worn by the characters mix influences from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth). There is class conflict and a killer on the loose.

Spurrier sets up his story nicely, limning in the main characters neatly, and creating convincing details of how his community would talk and act after generations in the belly of a beast. Irving’s art is clear and precise yet dark and foreboding, with one brief interlude making good use of his psychedelic style from Storming Heaven. An occasional experiment, such as using semi-transparent word balloons to indicate whispering, fails to come off, and it is still a puzzle how an isolated ship-load of people manage to obtain enough food, let alone clothing and furniture and even art materials, but on the whole this is a confident and well-realised comic.


However, I think it would have come across better if I had not recently read the collected edition of Leviathan, a 2000AD series by Ian Edginton and D’Israeli, the story of a community living on a giant ocean liner that was possessed by a demon twenty years earlier, where there is class conflict and a killer on the loose; and also Seven Soldiers: Klarion the Witchboy by Grant Morrison and Frazer Irving, in part the story of a community living underground, having been dragged there hundreds of years earlier by the fairy-like Sheeda, and whose inhabitants could wander around Gutsville without anyone remarking on the oddity of their clothes. The prologue to Gutsville even concludes with the phrase “Gutsville endures”, a clear echo of the chant “Croatoan abides” which peals through Klarion.

Still, there’s enough that’s good about this opening for me to hope that future issues escape from what at the moment seems like a high concept pitch of “Leviathan meets Klarion”, and tell a story of their own.


Spider-Man Fairy Tales issue 1 “Off the Beaten Path” by C B Cebulski (writer), Ricardo Tercio (artist), Artmonkeys Studios (letters) and Molly Lazer (editor), Marvel Comics, July 2007, 23 pages of strip, US$2.99

This is a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, with a version of Mary-Jane Watson as the heroine, a Peter Parker as the Woodcutter, and an Aunt May as a substitute for Grandmother. J Jonah Jameson also appears as a grumpy and distrustful village elder. But really, the Spider-Man elements here are at best irrelevant and at worst a distraction. The setting is classic mitteleuropan forest, not New York, and no superheroics occur. Spider-Man is used only as an external heroic ideal, which the heroine must replace with her own courage and initiative and that of her fiancé.

There are two variations from the classic story. Mary-Jane plays as active a part in killing the wolf as Peter (fair enough, though the way it is done is not terribly plausible), and Aunt May is not eaten, which I am sure would have disappointed me terribly as a bloodthirsty toddler. Still, at least Peter doesn’t have to put on his black woodcutter costume and become all vengeful. (And Mary-Jane doesn’t do any laundry in this story, either.)

The style of writing is clearly pitched at children, which is refreshing, though it makes it hard for this middle-aged man to judge its success. The art is bright and exuberantly cartoony, with computer colours allowing Tercio to miss out black lines altogether for anything other than black objects, creating a Matisse-styled cut-out effect.

“Mad Scientists! Marvel Comics!”

Producer Russell T Davies told the Radio Times that his instructions to Stephen Greenhorn, writer of tomorrow’s Doctor Who episode, were, “Marvel Comics! … Give us a good old mad scientist, with an experiment gone wrong, and an outrageous supervillain on the loose.”

Well, I can’t quite picture guest star Mark Gatiss as Doctor Doom, so let’s try the Lizard.




Just a perfunctory post today – I’ve got a heavy cold and am planning on a hot lemon drink and an early night. Unless there are any mad scientists out there with a cure?

No, perhaps best not to try it …


Panels
Spider-Man “Face-to-Face with … the Lizard!”, written by Stan Lee, drawn by Steve Ditko, lettered by Artie Simak, The Amazing Spider-Man issue 6, November 1963, reprinted in Marvel Masterworks Volume 1: The Amazing Spider-Man, Marvel Comics, 1987

Reviews: Mr Stuffins, Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, Wallace & Gromit

Mr Stuffins issue 1 written by Andrew Cosby and Johanna Stokes, drawn by Lee Carter, coloured by Pablo Quigliotti, lettered by Terri Delgado and Marshall Dillon, Boom! Studios, May 2007, 22 pages of strip, US$3.99

In this, the first of a three-part series, the programme disc intended to control some sort of military/spy robot ends up inside a mechanical teddy bear, which is bought by a small boy. The nasty corporation that created the programme then comes looking for it.

As “high concepts” go, this is rather reminiscent of Small Soldiers, and there are absolutely no surprises in how the narrative unfolds. Having said that, the script is efficient and amusing enough, and maybe there will be some twists in later issues.

The disaster area is the art. Carter’s drawings are OK, if a bit crude, but either Quigliotti has deliberately decided to colour everything with dark brown mud, or there has been an almighty cock-up in the production department. Dead of night in the boy’s bedroom, inside a (presumably) brightly-lit shopping mall, outside a school in the day time: all are plunged into the same stygian gloom.



The effort required to work out what is going on in these over-dark panels brings home one characteristic of the storytelling: there is nothing here that makes use of the unique qualities of comics. The pictures act only to provide information, not to create resonant imagery. There is no byplay between words and pictures, no use of the interaction between panel and page. The cost of an animatronic or CGI Mr Stuffins aside, this could be translated into a script for TV (where Cosby normally works) without much difficulty.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing – an entertaining story is an entertaining story in any medium – but it is one less reason for me to be interested. Ultimately, the most amusing thing about this comic – the very idea of a teddy bear James Bond – can be gleaned just by looking at the cover.


Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four issue 1: “The Arrival” by Jeff Parker (writer), Mike Wieringo (penciller), Wade von Grawbadger (inker), Pete Pantazis (colourist), Blambot’s Nate Piekos (letterer) and Stephen Wacker (editor), cover by Mike Wieringo, Karl Kesel and Pete Pantazis, frontispiece by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, Marvel Comics, June 2007, 23 pages of strip, US$2.99

Like many in the blogosphere, I am weary of bloated rococo cross-over events; of gore, angst, prurience and – worst of all - literalism attempting to pass as sophistication; and of the gross distortions of established characters that Marvel and DC’s editors believe are necessary to fit their grand designs.

So this four-issue series should be right up my street. It’s written by Jeff Parker, whose Agents of Atlas and Marvel Adventures Avengers titles have emphasised playfulness, and drawn by Mike Wieringo, a skillful cartoonist who understands composition, panel progression, perspective and facial expression, and whose figure work is signally lacking in the postures of body-builders and porn performers. It is set before Civil War, whose shadow has blighted even such light and nimble comics as She-Hulk.

It doesn’t entirely work. There is a lack of tension in the build-up of the alien invasion which seems to be the main threat in the story. The aliens we have seen so far are unimpressive in design, and even a supposedly shocking event a little over half way through lacks impact (perhaps with reason, if the colour of Johnny Storm’s bed-linen on the next page has any significance – read it and you’ll understand what I mean). Since this is just the first part of four, it lacks as yet the complete structure that makes the one-off Marvel Adventures issues satisfying. And the whole thing is even more lacking in originality than Mr Stuffins: it’s just another super-hero story about long-established super-heroes.

And yet, a large part of the appeal of recurring characters in genre fiction derives from their reassuring familiarity. We want Sherlock Holmes to apply his observation and intellect to solve the mystery. We want Captain Kirk to be as passionate a moralist as he is a brawler and womaniser. We want the Doctor to pit spontaneity and compassion and humour against power and regimentation and death.

And we want Spider-Man to make lame quips while fighting bad guys – whether muggers or invaders way out of his league – because he can, and therefore he must. We want Reed and See-Through Sue to be loving parents, and Ben and Johnny to behave like adolescent pranksters, all the while assuming responsibility for the whole world, because the world needs and is worth protecting. And here they do. It is like meeting an old friend restored to health after a long and debilitating mental illness.



So, at heart, this is just a competent but inessential super-hero story. But I am so glad that it exists.


The Wallace and Gromit Comic issue 21, edited by Ned Hartley, Titan Magazines, May 2007, 21 pages of strip (out of 52), £2.60
Features: “Going Postal” by Andrew James (script), Steve Bright (pencils and inks), Samantha Emms (colours) and Jimmy Betancourt/Comicraft (letters)
“Plots in Space” part 4 by Dan Abnett (script), Jimmy Hansen (pencils), Bambos Georgiou (inks), Andrew James (colours) and Jimmy Betancourt/Comicraft (letters)

These strips are pretty much spot-on adaptations of the Aardman Animations films. Obviously, using any medium other than Claymation is going to rob the stories of some of their appeal, especially to those of us reared on Plasticene, Meccano and Airfix, but the writers and artists get the right feel, with mounting chaos, groansome puns and sly references, and an essentially English, Ealing Studios, mix of satire and cosiness. Even the details are well thought out: a nicely designed font, for example, and the way the page numbers are superimposed on pieces of cheese. The editors have not imposed a single style on the artists, but both Bright and Hansen/Georgiou achieve good matches with the look of the original films without being interchangeable with each other.



And Dan Abnett has remembered the old comics adage that everything goes better with a monkey.



As is usual with children’s comics in Britain these days, most pages are given over to miscellaneous filler: a pull-out poster of the cover, readers’ drawings and photos, quizzes and games, and a couple of text pieces supposedly written by Wallace (which aren’t much cop, although I did like the idea of the TV series Battleship Grimsby in which evil robots pursue the last remnants of humanity across Lincolnshire). But, as the magazine’s name suggests, it’s the comic strips that are the star attraction here, and they left me with a big, silly grin on my face.