From a new comics imprint of Abrams ComicArts comes Hardears, an alternate fantasy world inspired by the Caribbean cultures of Barbados. Barbados writer Nigel Lynch joins Barbados artist Matthew Clarke in the next alternate world. It is too lazy to refer to Hardears as another take on the Wakanda of Black Panther (it’s actually more like Alan Moore’s Watchmen).Hardears is worthy of a deeper analysis.
Taking place in an alternate version of Barbados called Hardears (which seems to mean a particularly bad future ahead), this graphic novel is as unique as Frank Miller’s look at ancient Sparta in 300. The artwork of this fantasy society has the flowy aura of P. Craig Russell’s interpretation of Wagner’s The Ring, and the mythology will spark curiosity like we saw in Paul Guinan’s Aztec Empire.
For years it seemed like new Christmas classics were few and far between. It usually takes some time for a movie to gain “classic” status, and that itself is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. Early on audiences stamped the label on Miracle on 34th Street, It’s a Wonderful Life, and White Christmas. You have your A Charlie Brown Christmas, your How the Grinch Stole Christmas,Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and a bevy of Rankin & Bass stop-motion animated shows like Frosty the Snowman. Then more modern fare came along, like A Christmas Story, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,The Muppet Christmas Carol, and Elf. Oh, and we can’t forget Die Hard. All stamped with an anvil as “classics.” If you want to see more movies from cinema history, check out the Turner Movie Classics book Christmas in the Movies, reviewed last year here at borg.
Putting aside the modern made for TV movies, if you’re younger, you may count as a classic something like The Polar Express, with Tom Hanks. It’s that kind of recent film category where you can add in Netflix’s new movie–its first animated feature, Klaus. Both of these movies are animated in interesting ways that will keep you entertained simply from a visual perspective, Klaus from its unique lighting and color choices and a strong Spanish comic art style (as seen in Dog Mendonça and PizzaBoy). They also share a certain traditional storybook look, and their tales also look back to nostalgia for their ideas. Klaus is another origin story take on Santa Claus. Audiences have seen this many times, including in the not to be missed films Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town (featuring the voices of Fred Astaire, Mickey Rooney, and Keenan Wynn) and in books like L. Frank Baum’s The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus and more recently, the brilliant Santa: My Life and Times, with artwork by Bill Sienkiewicz (we reviewed it here).
Spain’s Sergio Pablos directed Klaus intentionally stepping away from modern Disney-style CGI animation to traditional hand-drawn art, so it looks more like Disney’s top technical achievement, the Oscar-winning Beauty and the Beast from 1991, and less like The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The story is cute, and contrasting with the traditional visual style, is the inclusion of humorous dialogue told by voice talents famously known for being snarky. We follow a postman named Jesper, who couldn’t look or sound more like David Spade, actually voiced by Jason Schwartzman. Jesper is a non-achiever, and his father sends him to a distant Scandinavian town to learn to be successful at his job. The town ends up like a lawless town out of the Old West. His job is to get people to use the mail service again. Along the way he runs into a Hatfield-McCoy conflict, with one part voiced by Joan Cusack, and an old man with a house full of toys named Klaus, voiced by J.K. Simmons.
Sometimes the implementation of an idea goes well beyond the idea itself. That’s what I found with the new Dynamite Comics series, Obey Me. The catchy title and great covers drew me to this first, and I’m a sucker for a story that stars a hound dog. I’m also a fan of the movie Crossroads, a 1986 film written by John Fusco that features an old man who sold his soul to the devil. A kid comes along (played by Ralph Macchio) who bargains for his life, and the result is a true American classic, steeped in mythology and blues. In Obey Me, a young woman bounty hunter is tasked with hunting down a mob boss who has broken his contract with the devil. She is joined by a talking hellhound–a familiar of sorts–and must go through several bodyguards to get to her target. Along the way through some mouthy dialogue and murderous camaraderie, the pair–the woman is Vanessa and the dog is Monty–create a goofy brand of chemistry. The plot sounds a little strange, but the first issue arriving in comic book stores tomorrow provides a heckuva fun story.
Obey Me blends two of my all-time favorite off-the-wall comic book series: It has the irreverent humor and unusual talking characters of Felipe Melo, Juan Cavia, and Santiago Villa’s The Adventures of Dog Mendonça & Pizzaboy, and the equally strange, irreverent, and unusual series God the Dyslexic Dog from Brian and Phil Phillipson and legendary artist (and this year a Will Eisner Hall of Fame nominee) Alex Niño. Plus there’s the Talking Dog. Obey Me writer Mario Mentasti provides a familiar foundation, but look forward to some amped-up action and dialogue that will be loads of fun for mature readers. Artist Ben Herrera and colorist Emmanuel Ordaz Torres find the perfect balance of comic book situations and blood, fire, and damnation. Best of all, the team of Vanessa and Monty is all badass, making the book a must for your comic store pull list.
I was surprised this story is a tie-in to a PC and console game called Obey Me from Error 404 Game Studios. It’s better than your average video game tie-in comic. The game is a one- or two-person “top-down 3D action brawler” coming to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows PC later this year. Here is a preview of Issue #0 of Obey Me, courtesy of Dynamite Entertainment, and the trailer for the video game:
What comic book series would you like see adapted to film that hasn’t yet been tried? The big superheroes–and many small ones–have now made their marks, along with the likes of stories from independent or creator-owned origins like From Hell, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Cowboys and Aliens, Road to Perdition, A History of Violence, Hellboy, RED, R.I.P.D., Kick-Ass, Kingsman: The Secret Service, and even small screen shows like The Walking Dead, iZombie, and now Wynonna Earp. Ask me what comic book series I would like to see translated to film the most and I won’t flinch: It’s Portuguese writer/musician Felipe Melo and Argentinian artist/designer Juan Cavia’s The Incredible Adventures of Dog Mendonça and PizzaBoy. (I’d invest in that film right now). It’s the most humorous and satisfying series since Frank Cho’s Liberty Meadows. Rich in pop culture references like you’d find in Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Leverage, fanboys and fangirls of any franchise will find some all-out fun here. Now the creators are concluding their series with the final act of an epic trilogy, The Incredible Adventures of Dog Mendonça and PizzaBoy III –Requiem, available now from Dark Horse Comics.
Melo and Cavia (and colorist Santiago R. Villa) are the real deal. Each of their three volumes has a foreword by a legendary film director fan: John Landis, George A. Romero, and now Tobe Hooper. Dog Mendonça (pronounced men-dōn’-sah) and PizzaBoy originally appeared in serial form in the pages of Dark Horse Presents. João Vicente “Dog” Mendonça is an overweight, Portuguese werewolf operating out of a noir era private investigator’s office. Mendonça has a lanky unpaid pizza delivery boy who becomes a client he calls PizzaBoy. And he has an assistant–a 6,000 year old demon named Pazuul, who appears as a chain-smoking blonde girl who never speaks out loud. They’ve saved the world more times than anyone can count, and are pretty blasé about it.
We reviewed the first volume in the series, The Incredible Adventures of Dog Mendonça and Pizza Boy, here at borg.com back in November 2012. In the first book the reader becomes a character walking along with the duo as Melo breaks the “third and fourth walls” in a funny and beautifully drawn story. Mendonça told the reader his own comic book creation story. In flashback we saw Mendonça’s tumultuous past. We learned that Mendonça’s father and six sisters were killed during World War II so that bad guys led by a Nazi could capture Mendonça and use his beastly werewolf powers for his owns ends– a tale full of bad circumstances, an epic journey in a small package, and revenge.
Forget about all those post-apocalyptic stories, only Dog Mendonça and Pizza Boy could tap the Book of Revelations for a zombie story out of the actual Apocalypse. Juggling the best parts of John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness, Raiders of the Lost Ark and the humor of Ghostbusters, with high drama, satire, and whimsical blasphemy, Portugal’s creative team of Felipe Melo, Juan Cavia, and Santiago Villa bring the world-saving duo back to the pages of Dark Horse Comics in The Incredible Adventures of Dog Mendonça and Pizza Boy II: Apocalypse.
We reviewed the first volume in the series, The Incredible Adventures of Dog Mendonça and Pizza Boy, here at borg.com back in November 2012. In the first book the reader becomes a character walking along with the duo as writer Felipe Melo breaks the “third and fourth walls” in a funny and beautifully drawn story.
This time Dog and Pizza Boy are back in Portugal and all hell is breaking loose. Locusts, horned beasts, the four horsemen, the sign of the last days, it’s all intertwined with the hilarity of these strange friends, a little girl demon (who was kicked out of Hell) named Pazuul, and a stone gargoyle named Edgar Augustus. Piled high with pop culture references and in-jokes, Melo’s story is as smart as any book on the newsstands, irreverent and wildly funny.
Juan Cavia’s artistry is as good as it gets. What’s going on away from the action is often the best part of the scene. On one page, the top panel shows fire and brimstone raining down on the group as they dodge explosions in their Volkswagen Beetle. On panel two we see a close-up of Dog and Pizzaboy with looks of horror yet Pazuul has an expression of a gleeful little girl as if on an amusement park ride. I don’t know why it’s so funny, but it is.
Look for a foreword in this edition by zombie master George A. Romero and a “making of” section as well as “The Untold Tales of Dog Mendonça and Pizza Boy.”
And if you like the first two volumes in the series, you’ll want to catch the final volume, The Incredible Adventures of Dog Mendonça and Pizza Boy III: Requiem in stores in November 2014.
is available in comic book stores February 26, 2014, or pre-order a copy 
