Todd Klein's Blog, page 22

Incoming: ABSOLUTE JUSTICE Boxed Hardcover

Images © DC Comics

This is a new printing of the 2009 first edition collecting the twelve-issue series by Jim Krueger, Alex Ross and Doug Braithwaite. Oversized (9 by 13 inches), weighing over six pounds, 496 pages, it’s an action-packed epic pitting the Justice League against a formidable confederation of super-villains. Retail price is $125, release date is Nov 19. I enjoyed lettering it.

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Rereading: STEAM ON THE LINE by Philip Turner

Turner’s first three novels for young readers were about the adventures of three boys in the northern British coastal town of Darnley Mills. Here he takes us back two generations to Victorian Britain, and the arrival of steam trains to the small town’s slate mine rail line, whose rail cars were previously hauled up by horses and came down by gravity. The main characters are the boy Taffy (David Hughes), grandfather of the David in the previous series, and his friend in the next house, Sarah. Both have parents working for the mine and its rail line, Taffy’s father is a carpenter who builds the rail cars. The mine is about to get two steam engines to replace the horses, a change which Taffy and Sarah and their families look forward to with excitement, but one which others in town are against, particularly the owner of the stage coach company, Mr. Jenner, and the odd religious hermit, Elijah, who preaches in town about the evils of machinery. When a railway crash is caused by fallen slate on the line, and evidence is found that the fall was caused by dynamite, both are suspected, and Taffy and Sarah are among those who try to find out the truth. Mr. Holdenby, director of the railway, and his board have decided to open up the line to passengers, who, when the connection is made, can transfer to the main rail line running north and south from Scotland to London. Taffy’s father is tasked with designing and building the passenger cars. But trouble is brewing in town, and there may be an even bigger disaster ahead.

Turner’s first three books were excellent reads, this one goes deeper, with emotional resonance, fine Victorian characters, and a very serious and thrilling story full of danger and excitement as well as humor and wisdom. I didn’t remember much of the story, but found it touching and satisfying in every way. Highly recommended.

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Incoming: JOHN CONSTANTINE, HELLBLAZER BY JAMIE DELANO OMNIBUS VOLUME ONE

Images © DC Comics

This massive hardcover weighing six pounds and containing 1,584 pages, collects issues 1-22 of the original HELLBLAZER comic plus an annual, SWAMP THING 65-77, and SANDMAN #3, with new introductions by Garth Ennis and Delano. Original retail price is $150, and it’s due out Oct 15th. Just in time for Halloween, I suppose! I enjoyed lettering some of the early issues.

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Rereading: THE BLACK STALLION AND SATAN by Walter Farley

Illustrated by Milton Menasco

Thus far, all the Walter Farley horse books have ended with an exciting race. This one begins there, and has a very different sort of race — against fire — at the end. As this fifth book opens, Alec Ramsay is about to try to capture racing’s triple crown with his mighty horse Satan, son of the Black Stallion. They have already won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, and are now in The Belmont. Later, at home in Flushing, NY, Alec receives a letter from Arabia from Tabari, the daughter of Abu Ishak, the owner of the Black. Her father has died in a fall from the stallion, and while her instinct is to have him destroyed, she decides her father would have wanted Alec to have his first and best horse back, and is flying the Black to New York, ownership papers will follow.

Alec and his friend and trainer, Henry, decide that the best plan is to buy a farm in upstate New York where they can put the Black to stud and raise a new generation of his children, while continuing to race Satan. Events intervene, and almost against his will, Alec finds himself set to race the Black against Satan and a group of international champions in a new match race in Saratoga, NY. The Black is still a wild stallion, whose first instinct is to fight other stallions rather than race them. Can Alec and Henry bring him around as a race horse in time?

Like all these books, an exciting and well-written story for anyone who loves horses or horse racing. Recommended.

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Rereading: THE HORSE IN THE CAMEL SUIT by William Pène du Bois

This is what’s now called a chapter book, 80 pages of story with dozens of full-color illustrations by the author. I don’t have many in my library, but any book by du Bois is worth reading. It’s actually a sequel to The Alligator Case, a book I haven’t read.

The narrator is an unnamed boy who calls himself “a detective in a one-supermarket town.” One day a flamboyant and sarcastic vaudeville magician, Swami Tarragon, arrives with his group of confederates dressed in animal costumes. They parade through town to its one hotel, where the Swami demands a fine room for himself, and room in the basement for his troupe. Before long, the town’s one policeman, Officer Dillingham, gets involved, and the Swami’s insults lead him to arrest the group, imprisoning them in the hotel cellar. Our narrator thinks this is a mistake, and he helps the group get free to put on their performance, though he does believe a serious crime has been committed, and he comes up with a plan to reveal it.

Great fun to read, the illustrations are a delight.

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Rereading: OVER THE SEA’S EDGE by Jane Louise Curry

The fourth book in Curry’s Abaloc series was the most interesting one to reread for me so far. Dave Reese, a boy on vacation in Ohio next to the river, finds a silver amulet, and it causes him to change places with a boy like himself named Dewi in medieval Wales. Dewi is a lowly hounds keeper in the castle of his master, and he’s quickly caught up in helping an imprisoned prince, Madauc, escape. Madauc and his loyal followers become intrigued by stories of gold and pearls in an unknown land west across the ocean, and they build a ship and sail there, with Dewi as part of the crew.

When they reach America, as we know it, Madauc is treated with awe by a young native princess, Coala, who believe him to be a god. She leads the group north toward the home of the people of Abaloc, who figure in the stories they’ve heard, but when they arrive, they find the small settlement in turmoil. Prince Lincoas is opposed by their treacherous magician Neolin, who has plans to turn the tribe over to his true masters, savage sun worshippers from further west. How can Dewi, Madauc and their small group save Abaloc from the mighty army marching toward them?

This book connects directly with The Daybreakers, having some of the same characters, though that connection isn’t made clearly or explained. This is still an engrossing and exciting story on its own, and recommended.

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Rereading: A MYSTERY FOR MR. BASS by Eleanor Cameron

The fourth book in the Mushroom Planet series is quite complicated, but also full of action and drama, and interesting new developments. Scientist and mushroom person Prewytt Brumblydge is having one bad luck event after another, and then he gets very ill. Meanwhile, Mr. Bass is hurrying to refurbish the rocket ship for David and Chuck before he must return to the distant galaxy where he’s now living. When the boys bring him some strange glowing bones they found, he tells them that they are bones of his ancestors, and should be buried in a secret graveyard in Wales, and that they are half a million years old. Somehow word of that leaks out, and soon Mr. Bass and the boys are besieged by reporters and scientists who want to know more.

Prewytt’s illness may threaten his life, and the boys decide they need to take their rocket to the Mushroom Planet to get the samples of rock that he needs for his research, they think that will bring him around. They make the trip, but land in the wrong place, and discover a strange, deserted town with amazing art and carvings, but they need to find Ta, the leader of the mushroom people, and get his permission to take the rocks. When they find him, they are surprised to learn he wants to come back to Earth with them.

In the final section of the book, we learn more about the hidden community of mushroom people on Earth, centered in Wales, when they send a delegation to put Prewytt on trial for stealing those bones from their graveyard, and other dangerous acts. A courtroom drama of sorts reveals much more about the history of the mushroom people, but what will happen to Prewytt?

It’s easier to overlook the unreal science in this book’s space travel because there are so many other interesting things to focus on. The illustrations by Leonard Shortall are good, too. Recommended.

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LETTERER APPRECIATION DAY 2024

Gaspar Saladino at his 1957 wedding to Celeste Scali, courtesy of daughter Lisa Weinreb

Today is Letterer Appreciation Day, chosen because it’s the birthday of Gaspar Saladino, one of the greatest comics letterers of all time, and my favorite letterer. I hope you will take a moment to send a note of appreciation to at least one letterer today. I’ve written a great deal about Gaspar on my blog, here’s a link to the best one-post article, which in turn has links to all the others. Eight years gone, and I still miss hearing his hearty laugh.

Gaspar Saladino, Letterer

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Incoming: ELSEWORLDS BATMAN Volume Two

This reprints three 1990s graphic novels by Doug Moench and Kelley Jones in which Batman becomes a vampire: Red Rain, Bloodstorm, and Crimson Mist. I lettered all three, and enjoyed the stories and art. I had already worked with the team on Batman monthlies for some time, here they were able to avoid continuity and move deeper into horror. In my opinion, Kelley’s anatomically distorted Batman works better in this context than in the monthlies. This trade paperback with a slightly different cover came out in 2016, the reprint is due to hit shelves Oct 8, 2024 with a retail price of $24.99.

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Rereading: THE ROAD TO OZ by L. Frank Baum

The sixth Oz book by Baum tries a different visual approach from the previous ones. While the cover and dust jacket (missing from my copy) are in color, all the interior illustrations by John R. Neill are black and white line art. Color is added through signatures of paper in different shades, the example above is described as salmon, while you can see a bit of the previous signature at left, light blue. When I read the book as a child, I thought the idea was to represent the different places in the story with different colors, but the text fails miserably at that, as one might predict, and some of the paper colors have faded a lot so they can’t really be identified at this point. The salmon one above bucks that trend.

The story also has some differences from past Oz books. It begins with Dorothy and Toto meeting a tramp or homeless wanderer known as the Shaggy Man outside Dorothy’s Kansas home, artfully depicted by Neill as wearing clothes full of curly tatters. He is an ordinary but kindly character, and he reveals that he owns a magic charm, the Love Magnet, that causes everyone to love him. The Shaggy Man is lost, and Dorothy offers to go with him a short way to direct him, which soon brings them to a small boy sitting alone in the road, Button Bright. Before long the three people and Toto have come to an impossible crossroads with many different choices. Dorothy suspects they have somehow gotten into a fairyland like the ones she’s been to before, and later a meeting with Polychrome, the rainbow’s daughter, confirms that. Polychrome is also lost, having fallen from her rainbow, and these characters travel on together through a variety of strange villages inhabited by talking foxes and donkeys, and meetings with a man who breathes out music and an attack by dangerous Scoodlers. Eventually they reach the edge of the Deadly Desert which surrounds Oz, where Dorothy has many friends, but how can they cross without being turned to dust by the destroying sand?

Another interesting thing that Baum does is tie the Oz books together with all the other fantasy books and characters he’s written about to this point, through the idea of a massive birthday celebration for Ozma, ruler of Oz. Introduced for the party are John Dough and the Cherub, Queen Zixi of Ix, the Queen of Merryland, Santa Claus, and more from his other books. I don’t know if Baum was the first author to thus create his own crossover universe, but it’s certainly an early one.

While the plot rambles, and there is little serious danger or urgency, I enjoyed rereading this one. I doubt later printings follow the tinted paper idea, but it would hardly be missed. Recommended.

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