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Playing Catch Up   MOTHER MAY IBy Sarrah Young & Willow Dawson Now here's one I've been meaning to spotlight for a long time coming. I've been writing off-and-on on the side, hoping to start a new review column but time constraints have kept that hanging on the periphery for years. Yes, years. This is one book that goes to the top of the list when it comes to deserving of wider recognition. Mother May I is a limited series by Sarrah Young and Willow Dawson. Behind the cover almost as gorgeous as the two lovely young ladies who created this book you will find something that is all too easily absent or overlooked in comics, inventiveness, vitality and originality. Partially based on a true story, this series details the life of Serena, a struggling musician whose attempts to secure her independence in life are devastated by a sexual assault that occurs while on a blind date set-up by her very own mother. The art is wonderfully creative with expressionist storytelling. The attention to technique and layout certainly shines and invokes a keen understanding as to how to best exemplify the narrative. 10 percent of proceeds from the sale of each issue of Mother May I will be donated to the Toronto Child Abuse Centre's RSVP (Relationship Skills for Violence Prevention) Program. To see some sketches from the book and learn more about the creators, go to She Bytches.com/Mother May I. If you'd like to order a copy, simply contact either Sarrah or Willow for details.  CORDUROY HIGHBy Tyrone McCarthy Next up is CORDUROY HIGH, which you can learn more about in an upcoming interview with its creator Tyrone McCarthy. Think of CORDUROY HIGH as a stylized, sexualized and funkified version of traditional teen comic dramas. The artistic influences here are certainly a mix of commercial illustration and animation. The look of CORDUROY HIGH contains the characteristic aesthetics of Aeon Flux and Batman Beyond but with a modern urban flair set against the moodiness and architecture representative of MTV's Downtown. That said, it's a sexually charged high school drama mixing together freaks and the 'cool' crowd but it takes place in a world that looks very much like a lucid dream. The characters are refreshing aspects of teenage life in a very cocksure and don't give a shit way. Thrills and apathy disguised behind ego, desire, styling threads and fellatio lips. More on Corduroy High and its creator, Tyrone McCarthy at Corduroy High.com  RevolveRBy Salgood Sam Revolver is like a graphic novel journal featuring various projects and pieces by extraordinary artist Salgood Sam aka Max Douglas. This first volume contains excerpts of projects like Pin City and The Rise And Fall Of It All alongside other shorts, poems and sketches. Sam is without a doubt one of the most talented artists in the field today. Whenever you come across a piece by Sam you're sure to feast on a visual treat, a true work of pure art. One of the details about Sam's work that stands out [aside from his strong eye for detail itself that is] is his strong sense of layout. Many people tend to accept comics storytelling as being panels and gutters but a curve here and a broken barrier there creates an eccentric fluidity that allows the story to flow, and not only is it natural but just absolutely lovely to look at. There's a palpable sense of effort and thought engrained into each smudge of lead and stroke of ink. Sam experiments in a multitude of mediums and stylistic choices that I am continuously amazed by his ability and can only look forward to more of his work. Will Eisner was in Toronto last year and he said to Sam "It's [creators] like you who'll keep this business going" and I can only hope we'll see more creators like Max Douglas aka Salgood Sam. For More On Sam Visit Salgood Sam.com & Revolver Comix.com  BREMEN by Umezawa Haruto My new favourite manga, and it'll be your fave too. I still love IRON WOK JAN and think it's the most entertaining book currently on stands but where JAN rawks the wok, BREMEN is just pure rawk. Not yet serialized in North America [though hopefully it will be soon], BREMEN can be found courtesy of JUMP COMICS in Japan and I Believe in France it's from J'AI LU. BREMEN is about a band on their quest to be great as they fight for freedom and battle to become gods of rock. This book is crazy sexy cool, stylish, brash, insane, violent and overflowing with the unadulterated attitude of rock. The leader of the band is Kasuga Romio, a young amnesiac on a quest to be number one. He's also the craziest and kicks the most ass of the whole group. He also rawks screaming deep meaningful vocals. Kasuga joins up with Hino Reiji who has decided to go to Tokyo to prove his abilities on the guitar, after befriending Kasuga he invites him to join him so they can start a band together. Hayama Ryo joins them as the drummer and Fujii Ran as bassist. At first BREMEN is all action, throughout the series Kasuga battles muggers, biker gangs, unruly fans, even wrestles an anaconda. But at the core it's about being free, being a man and about how being rock is more then just music, but rather everything you do and everything you are. They become a great band because of their passion but also because they're more then just a band, they're kindred spirits.  If I were to relate this to anything in the North American comics market it would be THE INVISIBLES, it has that same sexy cool high action androgynous journey for freedom passion fuelled stylish hyper drama mystery rawk that brands itself on your mind. They even have their own version of Lord Fanny with Hayama Ryo [Though the role of a shaman is replaced with an S&M Mistress] and like the Invisibles represented four elements, Bremen represents four animals. Kasuga also shares similarities with Dane in that they're both tied to the mythology of being/becoming 'The One', they're both rebellious, and both learn the truth about themselves as they go forth. BREMEN even breaches over into a sorta supernatural conspiracy mystery storyline later on as Kasuga begins to regain some of his memories. They are nine volumes currently available in France and Japan, over 200 pages each, so if you can get to them, I strongly recommend this series. Now onto Select Items Shipping This Week for Feb 23: DEC040335 LOSERS #21 DC Comics/Vertigo - $2.95 If you've gone to the 'I'll get it in trade' stage of collecting this series I can't really fault you, I do that far too often. But I'm sticking with this series monthly because it's remained strong as far as I'm concerned. The truth behind what really went down to the Losers group has been revealed and now it's all about payback but in a very David & Goliath way. The Losers are looking to make Max hurt in a big way and when the action kicks up, this series remains very strong. DEC040274 SEVEN SOLDIERS #0 DC Comics - $2.95 First off I'm just glad to see they're not gouging readers in terms of price, as would often be the case with a kick off book such as this. Having seen some of the preview pages I can already tell that this will be a heavy, fanatical, gracefully designed book - the type of book that has long been absent. DEC040275 SOLO #3 DC Comics - $4.95 Now here's a good comparison to the above, same page count as SEVEN SOLDIERS but retaining the regular price. Luckily, it's 48 pages of new Paul Pope material. From personal work to just Pope playing with a variety of DCU Characters. The one thing about this I'm most interested to see is the collaboration with James Jean, who coloured one of Pope's stories featured in this book, which should prove interesting to say the least. DEC041763 AVENGERS EARTHS MIGHTIEST HEROES #8 (OF 8) Marvel Comics - $3.50 I gotta say, I've actually really enjoyed this series. I think it's the strong sense of character, where each person in this series is so well defined that helps to make it enjoyable to read. The book is really about a group of people trying to uphold an ideal while forces all around them threaten to bring that down. So really it's a matter of what's stronger? The ideal, the push to do what's right and good despite the odds OR all these factors around them that threaten to belittle that ideal? A hardcover collection of this series will be out soon as well. That's pretty much it from me, The new PREVIEWS Catalogue will be out this week but other then that quite a lot of stuff I have no interest in commenting on. Brian will be back next week though and he's sure to find more titles appealing then these snide old bones might. Until then, Cheers.
 Jonathan Ellis is Co-Editor in Chief of PopImage  PopImage Forum - Discuss this message at the PopImage forum. E-Mail Us - Send us an e-mail commenting on this article. Upfront Archive - Read past Upfront articles |
Brian's taking time off from his column UNTIL YOUR HEART STOPS this week so I thought I'd step in and do my own 'shipping this week' commentary but now that I'm here I'm going to play catch up and comment on some comics I've been meaning to talk about for far too long. But first, some pre-emptive sidetracking... I'd like to encourage you all to visit our pal Mal's 
If you're familiar with torrents then simply go to 
