Todd Klein's Blog, page 301

Snake!

In our back yard just now, a large Black Racer, probably four feet long. Heading toward the pond, probably looking for a frog for lunch. I headed him off, but he might well be back later when I’m not around. The cats spotted him first, of course!

And Then I Read: THE LAND OF SILVER APPLES

© Nancy Farmer.

The second of three books in a trilogy, the first being “The Sea of Trolls.” Nancy Farmer has impressed me with her ability to write all kinds of fantasy, and this series is excellent. In “The Sea of Trolls” we met young Jack, living on England’s northeast shore in mediaeval times, son of a poor farmer in a backwater community. In that book, Jack was abducted by raiding Vikings and carried to far northern lands, including those of Norse fable and legend. In this book, Jack is back home with his family, and apprenticed to The Bard, his mentor and teacher in the ways of music and magic. Jack’s sister Lucy, also kidnapped by the same Vikings and returned with Jack, is causing a lot of family strife, and even disrupts an important village ritual, causing a flood of evil events to fall on Jack and his circle. Father Aidan, a local clergyman, suggests they go on a quest to the fountain at St. Filian’s Abbey, whose waters are said to cure many evils. They hope to remove the unknown evil that seems to have taken residence in Lucy.

On the way there, Jack, Lucy, their father, Pega (a freed slave girl) and the priest have some adventures, but nothing can prepare them for what happens when they finally reach the fabled fountain. Jack is struck down with some kind of powerful curse by the spirit of the fountain, Nimue. Despite that, he uses his own magic to free the imprisoned fairy, releasing the pent-up waters of the fountain, as well as a small earthquake.

Soon Jack, Lucy and Pega find themselves being thrown into a deep well, all that remains of the fountain. Underground, they begin a strange and wondrous journey that will bring them to magical lands full of beings both friendly and dangerous, reunite Jack with his Viking friend Thorgil, and eventually take them to Fairyland itself, a place full of deception and powerful magic.

Nancy Farmer’s story takes place in ancient times, and is quite well researched, but her writing style is generally modern. We’re told that the characters are speaking Saxon, but she doesn’t attempt to mimic old speaking styles. Instead she allows modern phrases, as if translating freely. The characters are all quite well developed and interesting, each with his or her personal goals and beliefs, each with strengths and weaknesses, and all very human, except for those that are intentionally not human. The journey of the book is a long and complicated one, but it’s never dull, and it all does eventually come back to many satisfying resolutions at the end. I’ll be getting the third book in the trilogy one of these days. I read this one in e-book form on my phone and iPad, and it went surprisingly quickly for a story with so many twists and turns and events.

Recommended.

Rereading: HARDING’S LUCK by E. Nesbit

Edith Nesbit is one of my favorite authors of fantasy novels for younger readers. Her books for children were published between 1899 and 1925, with the majority of them in the first decade of the 20th century. While I like them all, even the non-fantasy ones, there are a few that I count as favorites, and this is one. I reread it about once a decade. Nesbit had a great understanding of poor and disadvantaged people, and this is one of her books that best shows that, plus the magic in it is inventive and exciting.

Dickie Harding is one of those poor people, a boy living with his aunt in a dingy row house. The aunt does not treat him very well, and the surroundings are grim and soulless. As Nesbit portrays Dickie, he’s a good, well-meaning boy with a lame leg that requires him to walk with a crutch made from an old broom handle. He tries to help his aunt, but longs for better things. When some unusual seeds come his way, he plants them in the back garden where nothing else grows, and while Dickie is away in hospital having some work done on his leg, a huge flower emerges, much like a sunflower, but silvery white. Dickie calls it a moonflower, and carefully collects the seeds. He uses some to bargain with a pawn-broker to get back a small silver rattle that’s the only heritage from his long-lost parents.

Out on an errand one day for his aunt, Dickie falls in with a tramp named Mr. Beale who convinces, or really tricks the boy into leaving home and setting out on the road with him. The two make their way by begging, and the lame boy discovers he’s quite good at this. Later, Mr. Beale reveals another motive for wanting Dickie…he’s part of a robbery that’s planned in a big, fancy estate, and Dickie is needed to crawl in through a small window to let in the burglars. Dickie is not happy with this idea, but eventually goes along. The robbery goes wrong, and Dickie is captured by the homeowners. Rather than turning him over to the police, the lady of the house offers to let Dickie stay with her and become part of the household. Dickie is entranced with the offer, but eventually decides he must run away again back to his aunt.

When Dickie finally returns to his old home, he finds his aunt long gone, and the house empty. Despairing and penniless, the boy sneaks into the empty house to spend the night. he lays out his only remaining treasures: the silver rattle and the moonflower seeds. In the night a magical mole appears to help Dickie. This creature, called a Mouldiwarp, is connected to the rattle, and somehow brought forth by the moonflower seeds. “Where do you want to go?” asks the creature. Dickie says he’s not particular. And the next morning, to his amazement, the boy wakes up in a new time and place: several hundred years in the past, in a large castle. Dickie is known well by everyone there as Richard Arden. It seems he’s stepped into the place of one of his ancestors. Best of all, the boy is no longer lame, and has two strong legs to carry him.

Many interesting things happen to Richard, along with his two cousins who have their own separate but connected book, “The House of Arden,” but eventually Dickie asks the Mouldiwarp to return him to his own time and place. He feels guilty about abandoning Mr. Beale and wants to try to help that man to a better life. Richard in the past is quite rich, and he figures out a clever way to get some of those riches into his own time.

That’s only about half the book, and if this sounds intriguing to you, I heartily recommend you give it a try. The image above is from my hardcover copy, but I actually reread it on my phone and iPad in a public domain version from Project Gutenberg. A link to that version is HERE. I find Nesbit reads quite well today, aside from some British slang and dialect, but it’s really not hard to follow, and her prose is engaging. She will draw you into her story quickly, and you’ll have a fine time in it!

And Then I Read: GREEN LANTERN NEW GUARDIANS 10

Images © DC Comics, Inc.

While over in GREEN LANTERN the Indigo Tribe is in trouble, here the Blue Lanterns are in even worse shape, their central power battery shattered, their planet under attack by invaders from space, an insect hive-mind sort of group that seem to be controlled mentally by something or someone unseen. Green Lantern Kyle Rayner and some of his rainbow-colored comrades are trying to help, but it seems a hopeless task. And who’s behind all this destruction? Saint Walker, the leader of the Blue Lanterns has strong suspicions.

The artist is Tomas Giorello, listed as penciller, with no one listed as inker, so I guess his pencils are used as inks and colored. The result looks quite good to me.

I’m getting a little tired of endless battles, but the teaser for the next issue has me interested.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: GREEN LANTERN 10

Images © DC Comics, Inc.

Is writer Geoff Johns dismantling the rainbow of different Corps he created? In this title, the Indigo one seems to be coming apart. Despite the best efforts of Hal Jordan and Sinestro, I might add. The Indigo’s central power battery has been destroyed, and the former Indigo Lanterns have reverted back to their true natures: hardened killers. Is there one among them who can return the tribe to their former ways? Read the issue to find out.

I particularly enjoy the repartee between Hal and Sinestro, as above, in this page with great art by Doug Mahnke and one of several inkers.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: SECRET SERVICE 2

Images © Millarworld Ltd, Marv Films Ltd, and Dave Gibbons Ltd.

Now that I’ve read the second issue of this series, I like it even more. The issue opens on a tropical isle where fifty couples are about to be wed in a group ceremony on the beach. In a large yacht nearby, a nefarious group is planning to bombard them with some kind of ray or signal that will turn them all into mad killers. Well, as you can see above, it works all too well.

Back in London, Uncle Jack is telling his nephew Gary about his secret career as a British agent, and offering the boy a chance to enter training to become one himself. Gary takes some convincing, but in the end agrees, and is taken to the covert training center. Jack, meanwhile, is called to join the investigation into the kill ray, which sends him off to China.

While the gore is not to my taste, the spy stuff is well written by Mark Millar and feels authentic, as do the relationships between Jack, his sister and her family. Dave Gibbon’s art is wonderful, aided by great inks from Andy Lanning and fine colors from Angus McKie, whose work I don’t see enough of.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: JUSTICE LEAGUE 10

Images © DC Comics, Inc.

“The Villain’s Journey” continues with two story threads. In the past we see the villain, David Graves, traveling to a remote place of power and confronting what he finds there, hoping to gain power of his own. And in the present we see the Justice League gathering evidence that Graves is the new threat they’re facing, and finally facing the very changed man himself, in a confrontation that shows Graves’ new abilities and his knowledge of the heroes. Well done writing by Geoff Johns, though the rapid cuts between the two stories did lose me a few times.

The backup “Shazam” feature continues to be one I enjoy even more than the front story. This time the story is split between the not-yet-powered orphaned children Freddy and Billy and their struggles against some bullies in one storyline, and the rise of a new villain that will be familiar to Captain Marvel fans in the other. This is building slowly, but nicely.

Here’s some art by Jim Lee and Scott Williams from the main story. Aquaman gets his own flashback. All the art, including the backup by Gary Frank, is quite good.

Recommended.

Incoming: STARSTRUCK & INVISIBLES OMNIBUS

Image © Elaine Lee & Michael Wm. Kaluta.

Just arrived from Michael Kaluta is this handsome oversized hardcover edition of STARSTRUCK from IDW, collecting the newly reprinted series with marvelous new color by Lee Moyer, and the same old lettering by myself (and John Workman on a few Galactic Girl Guides stories). IDW is producing some extremely nice hardcovers these days, giving DC a run for their money in that area. I have a fondness for this project, which I started working on in 1980, and added to sporadically over the years since. I recommend it highly. Best darn space opera you’ll find in comics.

This and following image © Grant Morrison.

I knew that DC was doing a new one-volume omnibus hardcover edition of Grant Morrison’s THE INVISIBLES, but until it arrived I didn’t conceive of how large it would be. There were three series, I lettered two of them, and with all the additional material (there’s lots) it comes to about 1500 pages, and weighs 10 pounds. Light reading, it’s not!

I mean, look at these side views — thicker than a New York City phone book, I bet! (If they still make those.) If you’re a Morrison fan, this is probably something you want to at least consider getting, even if you have the trade paperback collections. Better get going on your arm workouts, though! And I bet Rian Hughes is pretty happy with the showcase his logo is getting!

What I’m Working On

Image © Bill Willingham and DC Comics, Inc.

While we do get to the beach occasionally in the summer, much of the time I’m working hard, as usual. I’ve just finished lettering two large projects this week. Above is a sample from FABLES: WOLVES OF THE HEARTLAND, with terrific pencils by Jim Fern. This is a stand-alone FABLES graphic novel that has been slowly in process for about three years. Jim is not the fastest guy, but his work is really fine. I’m still waiting for inks on some pages, but the lettering is in place, and the last batch was sent in for proofreading Friday.

This and next image © Renegade Arts Entertainment.

This past February I finished lettering a fine historical graphic novel, THE LOXLEYS AND THE WAR OF 1812, and it was published in hardcover by Renegade Arts. (Look for it online at their site.) A few months ago the Canadian Film Board decided to license the project for their website (I think), and did a lot of work to turn it into a motion comic. I was asked to make some lettering changes for this, which amounted to about ten pages of lettering work. I did that, and I thought that would be the end of the project. Then about six weeks ago they contacted me with another request. Since they’re a Canadian government agency, they needed to also produce a French language version of the story (Canada is officially bilingual). Would I be willing to reletter everything in French?

I really wasn’t keen on the idea. I’d lettered the original 101 page story gradually over six months. The motion comic version is shorter, about 85 pages, but that was still a ton of lettering work, and they needed it by the end of August. I tried to get them to hire someone else, but in the end they talked me into it.

I’m happy to say I’ve just finished the entire thing in about three weeks. It wasn’t quite as labor intensive as the first round, since I was able to copy and paste the lettering text from their script into my existing English pages. This avoided the extra work of typing in all those diacritical marks, the accents over many of the letters. Of course, I still had to make the new text work, which often meant redoing the balloon and caption borders. There were some challenges: places where the English barely fit, and usually the French text was longer. I’m not sure why that is, either the translation is not as terse, or the language just has longer words and phrases on average. I had to make a few style changes from my usual work. Note the first word in the second caption above: IL. The style I follow doesn’t use the serif I for anything other than the personal pronoun I and contractions like I’m and I’ll, but if I’d done that for IL it would have looked like II, since my sans-serif capital I and my lower case L are identical. Some punctuation is different, too, like the quote marks. But I’m really glad now that, when I created this and the other fonts used in the book, I gave them full international character sets, so all the diacritical marks and other non-English punctuation and characters are there when I need them. I rarely do, but jobs like this would be a nightmare without them!

Also today I lettered two more “Prince Valiant” Sunday pages for Gary Gianni, or actually, for the buyer of those pages, who paid my lettering fee to replace the computer lettering done by the syndicate with hand-lettering. They’re similar to the one shown in this post.

Now my in-box is cleared of extra projects, and I’m ready to begin the two hot DC books coming next week: UNWRITTEN 41 and FABLES 121. And I’m sure there will be rounds of corrections on those and the other work I’ve just finished, so it will be a busy week. Hoping to have an easier following week, when Ellen’s family will be visiting. It should be, but the freelance life is always uncertain as to when you might get some time off…

And Then I Read: B.P.R.D. HELL ON EARTH Vol. 2

Images © Mike Mignola.

Things have really gone to Hell in this volume of the long-running HELLBOY spinoff about a group of monster-fighters. It seems the monsters are winning, huge and horrible beasts popping up all over the place, people being taken over mentally by evil forces and committing horrible acts, even a volcano erupting in the middle of Texas.Writers Mike Mignola and John Arcudi are cooking up a real mess of serious trouble.

This book collects two short story arcs. In the first one, drawn by Guy Davis, the focus is on a girl in Texas, Fenix, one of a mass of nomads uprooted by the volcano, who seems to have an uncanny ability to foresee trouble and steer herself and her friends out of it. The Bureau learns of her, and sends a task force to find her, headed by Abe Sapien. The girl is sick, physically, and seems to be losing the struggle to avoid trouble. Abe finds that out the hard way.

In the second storyline, drawn by newcomer to the franchise Tyler Crook, the focus is on Liz Sherman, gone awol and hiding out in a trailer park with some dubious characters. They aren’t much help to her when serious evil doings erupt, but the ever resourceful and sarcastic Liz manages to handle things for a while…but only for a while. Meanwhile, back at headquarters, the B.P.R.D. seems to be falling apart under all these new threats.

While Guy Davis is great at the scary stuff, I have to say I enjoyed the art by Tyler Crook, sample above, even more. He seems to have a good handle on Liz, and his storytelling and art style are appealing. Sounds like he’s the new regular artist, which is fine with me.

Recommended.