Random Back Issues #127 - Test #1

Looks more like Kansas to me. Maybe eastern Colorado.

Aleph's hitchhiking comes to an abrupt end after asking too many personal questions and gets dropped off somewhere in Iowa. Or Nebraska.

While Aleph converses with some sort of AI/Alexa thing, a bunch of guys in white SUVs show up. Aleph underwent a lot of experiments that involved modifications, and the companies that did those experiments want their proprietary technology back.

Judging by the flashback to Aleph's journey to the middle of nowhere, those aren't the first people they've killed trying to find Laurelwood. A town that was removed from all the maps. What's there? Aleph doesn't know, but they want to find out.

Their arrival is marked by immediately being stung by some mechanical mosquito, prompting Aleph to bolt for the nearest hotel to wait out whatever will happen. Takes a bunch of "brain pills" (use not detailed) and crawls inside the steamer trunk to sleep, while weird shadows watching through the mirror. You know, one of my coworkers briefly stayed in a hotel where she thought there was something weird about the mirror and promptly found a different hotel. But Aleph's in either no position or no mind to be choosy.

After another flashback detailing how Aleph escaped the research lab (having a fellow patient stab them bad enough to get moved to a less-secure place) Aleph's up and patching up the places where the seams are starting to show, it's time to investigate the town. Laurelwood looks a lot like a regular town, except for all the things that don't fit. Roombas cleaning the streets, VR helmets, grocery stores stocked with brands never seen before.

All of which seems to overload Aleph, who then somehow overloads the lights in the supermarket. Well, that'll get most anyone asked to leave, but the streets are full of more guys with white SUVs, so Aleph tries their luck in a bookstore, and gets a quartet of senior citizens wielding sabers for the effort.

{11th longbox, 75th comic, Test #1, by Christopher Sebela (writer), Jen Hickman (artist), Harry Saxon (colorist), Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (letterer}

Saturday Splash Page #91

 

"Experimental Stage," in Test #2, by Christopher Sebela (writer), Jen Hickman (artist), Harry Saxon (colorist), Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (letterer)

A mini-series from 2019 about Aleph Null, a young person who has spent years signing up to be a test subject for different studies which may work, or may not. Either way, Aleph takes the money and uses it to try and make themselves into what they think feels right. Magnets under the fingers, all sorts of bits of software or hardware that work, some of the time. Because Aleph's obsessed with finding the future, finding where they fit.

That future might just exist in the town of Laurelwood, but once Aleph gets there, they find the future's not much of an improvement, not in the ways Aleph might hope, anyway. There are still factions, humans fighting and squabbling over different interests. The ones who want the technology destroyed, whose futures lie in the past. The corporations, looking for the next thing that will make them big bucks, whether it's Laurelwood or Aleph. The people who think they can win a big fight and fix everything.

It seems like Sebela's writing about control, who has it, who doesn't. Aleph wants control of themself at least. That's what they've been striving for in one way or another. To not lose people, even if that means trying to stay away from everyone, or by experimenting on themself, make themself into whatever they can manage, because at least it'll be their choice.

In the town of Laurelwood, mirrors are actual portals that people can move through. Most of the time, they just spy through them. Like all the experimental studies they were part of, doctors sitting behind fake mirrors, watching to see what happens to the guinea pigs. Hickman draws those people as dark shapes with big empty eyes peering out, to the point Aleph takes to sleeping in a trunk suitcase to stay hidden. Trapped in a box within a larger box. The world behind the mirrors is a mess of dark hallways and twisting stairs. Another maze for Aleph to find their way through.

It can lead anywhere, but that doesn't really matter because Aleph finds much the same thing in every direction. They're always being manipulated, always seen as the key in someone else's plans. Even the piece of the future, however it frames what it's doing, has its own designs and desires for Aleph. But that isn't only Aleph's problem, as they know. The doctors that watched the studies were themselves watched by someone else. Even those mysterious, faceless suits were being watched by what exists in the town. Everyone's being watched, everyone is a potential tool for someone or something else.

Hickman rarely usually panels that give expansive views. Even panels of the town are wide but short. You can't see beyond the buildings, and usually not beyond whatever street Aleph's looking at. The future is not a wide universe of possibilities. It's still a bunch of confining spaces, small boxes and test chambers.

Aleph ultimately is able to do some good for other people in a similar state, and maybe find some measure of peace for themself. Some acceptance of who they are, assuming that's actually how they feel, and not something imposed on them by the one helping. That seems to be the best one can hope for. The world's not presented as one where there will stop being conflict. As long as there are people and their wants, the same themes will occur, and that's not going to change, even in the amorphous future.

An AirBnB from Hell

Yeah, that never ends well.

I picked up Drew Zucker and Phillip Sevy's The House, because it has a basic concept that is apparently very appealing to me. A bunch of American GIs (and Nazi they captured) take shelter within a seemingly abandoned manor they find in the woods. They soon find the house is much stranger than they thought, but by then, they can't find a way out. Pretty much what I thought the plot of Ghosts of War was, and not too dissimilar to R-Point. It's a good starting point, to throw a bunch of guys who have been through some shit (and dealt with it in different ways) into a location that preys on that part of them, and which they can't simply shoot.

Zucker and Sevy don't bother trying too hard to introduce us to the GIs. We get their names via some caption boxes spread out over a few panels, but that's about it. I pretty much had to i.d. them based on if they wore anything distinctive. The sergeant has a full beard, Garcia wears glasses, the medic wears a red cap instead of a helmet.

But the story focuses on Private Harker, who Zucker draws as a slump-shouldered, shell-shocked looking guy most of the time. Harker's got something bad in his past, something to do with a him driving a car one night in the rain, but we don't find out the specifics of that until near the end. It's not really clear why Harker is the one most readily able to accept that things are messed up, once the house starts changing dimensions and stairs and doors start disappearing, but he is.

Zucker doesn't really draw the house in a way where there are many distinctive rooms, other than the one with the stairs. When the soldiers start searching the house, he tends to draw the panels tight around them. It limits our view of their surroundings, but also keeps the audience from developing any sense of where they are, or where they're supposed to be.

The horrors that house sends at them are a lot creepier looking the less distinct they are. When it gets left to Jen Hickman's coloring to show them as dark shadows with grinning teeth, they are really creepy, and it nods to the insubstantial, nightmare nature of them. When they take a more solid form, Hickman tries to color them differently, giving all the nightmares this sickly yellow-red that is stark contrast to the soldiers in their drab uniforms and their pasty faces. But I'm not sure the monsters don't still come out looking more ridiculous than frightening or creepy.

It feels like, for the GIs, Zucker and Sevy establish one rule for how the house works, but that they show it working another way in an earlier time. The first few pages are of two highwaymen who stumble across it fleeing the law. They seem to be attacked by zombies, and that seems to be it for them. But Harker eventually figures out, and this seems backed up by how things go, that the house and what it conjures can't physically do anything. Instead, it has to goad or trick them into doing it to each other or themselves. Otherwise, it could have killed Harker easily a half-dozen times. I'm not sure how reconcile that.

What I Bought 11/20/2019 - Part 1

It was actually a pretty decent haul for comics this week. 4 books, plus 2 books from last month that finally showed up. The downside is, right now there's only 6 comics coming out the rest of the year I want to get. December is gonna be a long, cold month.

Anyway! Here's one comic about a person who thinks they're nothing, and another about one with no face.

Test #5, by Christopher Sebela (writer), Jen Hickman (artist), Harry Saxon (colorist), Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (letterer) - Got the whole, wide something in their hands.

Aleph is alive again, making their way to Laurelwood, again, talking to Mary (who is actually Laurelwood) as he goes. Aleph had found the town once before by chance, all their modifications somehow honing in on it. But Aleph wasn't ever ready, or was close to dying, or the city was being torn apart, so Laurel kept resetting things to get how they want it. But now that they're together, there's still the matter of what comes next, and that's a bit of a stumbling block. Aleph isn't entirely sure what they want, and even when things seem to be going well, Laurel is more like us than they might admit.

It's a bit of an ominous ending, or maybe just realistic. Hoping that you can find some perfect point, then just hold there, isn't going to happen. Laurel mentions it midway through, that humans always want some big ending where everything is resolved, but it doesn't work like that. Things keep happening, good and bad, only the details change. The future is going to have a lot of the same bullshit mistakes the present does, and the past did. Just different people making the mistakes, even if they don't think they're people.

I like the last few pages, where Aleph initially wakes up alone in an empty apartment, then goes out to meet Aleph in an empty town, devoid of any details. Then you turn the page and Aleph's waking up again, but it's their apartment with Laurel, and there are paintings on the wall. Clothing is a little more elaborate - Aleph's at least wearing a collared shirt now - and the town has other people, the buildings have marquees on them now. Laurel is still learning from Aleph, but not everything is something Aleph would want them to learn. Although there's the suspicious part of me that wonders if Laurel killed Aleph again before that reboot or retooling.

This was interesting. I don't know that I love it, but it was neat. Be good to read it all over again at some point soon. 

Question: The Deaths of Vic Sage #1, by Jeff Lemire (writer), Denys Cowan (penciler), Bill Sienkiewicz (inker), Chris Sotomayor (colorist), Willie Schubert (letterer) - I love that swirly smoke and the implied red building in the background.

The Question exposes a councilman molesting underage kids, but finds a curious ring on the councilman. While he's chasing that rabbit hole, Myra is accepting her brother the mayor is a scumbag, and the entire city begins to go up in flames over a cop shooting a black man for running a red light. But Vic is trying to figure out why he found a skeleton in a long-abandoned building with a bullet hole in its head, and a mask just like his over its face. So naturally he goes to Richard Dragon, who roofies his tea, and now Vic's wandering around in the past. As you do.

I'm curious what direction this will go with the stuff in the past versus the stuff in the present. Vic is chasing down this secret order while the city quite possibly burns. It's clear the Mayor won't take any action that will help, but is that a conspiracy? Or is he just an incompetent, hamhanded doofus? Is Tot right that Vic Sage would be more use than the Question right now? Maybe none of this is going to factor into the story, but it feels like the moment Vic decides to just leave to go talk to Richard Dragon about his visions is a big deal.

There are several moments in this where his eyes aren't visible, even as a Vic Sage. They're these black pits, even if the rest of his face is perfectly visible. The moment after Myra walks away with the mayor's attorney. Again when he sees the video of the shooting and stumbles into the riot. I like how placid all the panels are on that page - dull colors, empty alleys - and then the final panel, a brick comes in from the right side of the page and smashes a window with a big red sound effect. And then the majority of the next page is Vic standing there alone on one side of the street, while the other side is total chaos. Then, in the panel below that, he pulls his hat down low and walks away. Caught in the Question, rather than the problem at hand.

What I Bought 9/18/2019 - Part 1

While I was on the road last week, I managed to pick up three of the four books that were out I wanted, which was better than I thought I'd do. That was a nice development in the midst of all the heat and my allergies going haywire again. Really hope I'm nearing the end of that difficulty for the year.

Magnificent Ms. Marvel #7, by Saladin Ahmed (writer), Joez Vazquez (artist), Ian Herring (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Nakia strikes me as someone who drives aggressively without realizing it. She gets on a tirade about something and all the while she's crossing three lanes at a time without signaling.

Kamala's in one of those stretches where the personal life aspects are suffering. Grades are down, father sick, late for school, needs to join an extracurricular, unresolved romantic tension with Bruno, all that jazz. So Zoe and Nakia take her on a road trip to the place with the best gyros in New Jersey. But the place is only full of wage zombies from a nearby company, who quickly surround them, and then Josh and that annoying redheaded fascist girl show up.

As far as recurring enemies of Kamala's go, they aren't the Inventor, but they're better than the sentient computer program. Because she can punch them. Although first we'll have to listen to them whine about how all their misfortune is Kamala's fault.  At least Josh already got his in this issue. No we'll just have to sit through Lockdown's next month.

Vazquez' style reminds me of Sara Pichelli's from when she was drawing Ultimate Spider-Man. Crisp look to the characters, not a lot of excess lines. Everything and everyone looks fairly clean and not necessarily a lot of background detail, It works. I like the liquid (tears?) running from all the zombies eyes, if you figure they're victims being abused by their bosses. Nakia says Rubicon "bought the whole town", and you wonder how accurate that is. Of course, all the zombies also have the liquid running from their mouths, which is gross rather than sad, but oh well.

The color work from the diner until the end was really nice. A lot of purples and oranges on the horizon, as we move towards dusk. The way the town or the trees are just shadowy outlines all around, with no hint of what's there. It's capturing that horror movie feel of being in dangerous, unknown territory as it's about to get very dark.

Test #4, by Christopher Sebela (writer), Jen Hickman (artist), Harry Saxon (colorist), Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (letterer) - I'd say Aleph has stuck their neck in out, but it might be they need to push the rest of themselves through, too.

The person who asked Aleph to lead them last time may actually be Aleph, but a future version. Or someone who can look like them. That doesn't exactly reassure, so Aleph runs from place to place, through mirror after mirror, through some of their memories, and eventually they meet a personification of the town of Laurelwood itself. The town was able to access the future, but bringing pieces of it here only excited people as to the commercial possibilities, instead of scaring them. At the moment, all the different forces are burning the city to the ground in a struggle for dominance, but that doesn't seem relevant, as Laurel and Aleph are planning to do something, but it requires Aleph to die. Again, because this isn't the first time Laurel's tried this.

So everything that's happened with Aleph has been an attempt by Laurel to make him ready for whatever it is the city plans to do with their access to the future? Like, going all the way back to childhood, or just since Aleph started trying to modify themselves? And it's been attempt after attempt after attempt? Or is that all those times Aleph thinks they should have died, they actually did, but Laurel's winding it back somehow? Laurel said the future isn't a place you can go, but I don't know that means the same is true of the past.

Yes, I'm fumbling here. I really don't grasp what Sebela's going for here, beyond Aleph trying to figure out what they really want and why, and how difficult that can be for someone else to understand. Laurel admits they never know what to say to help Aleph understand, and that they can't grasp why Aleph wants to not exist so badly. I feel like Aleph's line about "sapes" barely being able to exist now is and that being off the board entirely is the only way to be is just another cover. It's easier to pretend not to care, speaking as someone with experience in that viewpoint.

The weird in-between space is kind of nifty. A whole lot darkness, except there's something that reminds me of lungs sitting in the middle of a field of weird mushroom things. Everything has a soft blue tint, like the mushroom things are giving off the light. You could see it being almost soothing in spite of how weird it is. At least no one is chasing after Aleph or trying to attack him there, right? But it's still off to Aleph, enough they feel they have to run, even if there's no place to run to exactly. And hiding seems futile from something that can see you anywhere, since you're within it, sort of.

As a man once said, Red, I do believe you're talking out of your ass. True enough. Maybe I'll be able to make sense of it after next month. But probably not.

What I Bought 8/31/2019 - Part 3

It's been in the 90s here basically all week. I hope this is summer's last gasp, I would like to actual have autumn this year. OK, let's wrap up the stuff from August with the second and third issues of Test.

Test #2 and 3, by Christopher Sebela (writer), Jen Hickman (artist), Harry Saxon (colorist), Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (letterer) - Lost in the weeds, which is about how I felt after reading these two issues.

Aleph is in over their head, because everybody wants something from them. The Resistance wants him to help them undo the future that's infiltrated their town, because they want things back the way they used to be. But they can't or won't disguise their underlying contempt for Aleph (and Aleph's generation in general), and so Aleph escapes them. Only to cross paths with the Repo guys, who are actually waiting for Aleph and all the various implants to give out under the stress. 'Damage is how we get our best data.' The local gendarmes are bit more than the Repo guys were counting on, though.

Which brings Aleph to Bob and his mother, Lenore, who run the town. They want Aleph on board, and they're externally a lot nicer about it, while trying to put a higher spin on the whole thing. Yes, there's buttloads of cash to be made, but this about preparing humanity for the future. What kind of future, and whether it's one better off averted isn't addressed. And after all that, with the Repos still after them, and the suits or whatever they are watching from behind the mirrors, Aleph falls down a rabbit hole and meets a bunch of other people who got lost in the shuffle somewhere. And all they want, is for him to tell them what to do.

Yeah, the bit at the end lost me entirely. Part of me thinks the one making speeches at Aleph is some future version of Aleph, waiting impatiently for their past self to get a clue. But I don't think Sebela's going for something that trite. There's a whole thing about Aleph having spent a lot of time being observed by people behind mirrors, but those people are in turn being observed by someone else behind another mirror, and those people are being observed, ad infinitum. Except eventually you have to find someone far enough up the chain there's no one looking over their shoulder, right?

The part where Aleph's wandering the world behind mirrors, even if I don't understand half of what everyone's going on about, it looked interesting. A void that gradually resolves itself into a maze. Doors with bar codes on them that open to allow vaguely shaped lumps with luminous empty eyes to emerge. I don't know if those are supposed to be Aleph's memories, or some residual trace of some other test subjects who didn't survive as long as Aleph, but it makes for a nice visual. It's the place where Aleph drops this act about how they've always been in control, always been manipulating these people who thought Aleph was only a lab rat, how Aleph just watches everything dispassionately to find the loopholes and the weak points to exploit. There aren't any of those to exploit in that maze, though, so Aleph can't keep telling themselves that.

Hickman provides a lot of different visuals, for all the different pieces. The Resistance operate out of a rundown, ramshackle place, but it probably doesn't have anything that could spy on them. But they also think Aleph's blood is a weapon, like he was crossbred with something out of Alien. Bob and Lenore live in what's outwardly an ordinary 2-story house, until the walls start shifting and coming to life, reaching out to touch someone, or threaten them if they won't sign the contract. The Repo guys brandish contracts above their heads like a badge or club.

There's a lot of pieces, and I don't think I'm at all close to figuring them out, but we'll see. I really want to see if this comes together and pays off at the end.

What I Bought 8/3/2019 - Part 2

For today, a couple of first issues. Well, one of them is sort of a first issue, sort of a continuation. And I thought I'd have the first two issues of the other book, but it didn't work out that way.

Test #1, by Christopher Sebela (writer), Jen Hickman (artist), Harry Saxon (colorist), Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (writer) - Updated form of Operation! they've got going there.

Aleph is trying to find the town of Laurelwood, which is supposedly incredibly futuristic and has been erased from all maps. Aleph's had a lot of upgrades or random tests done on their body, because they're trying to find a particular feeling, I think. But they also signed a lot of contracts that give the companies that performed those procedures control of their body, so they're being hunted. And they may have killed some people, and may not be taking all the proper meds. But they found Laurelwood, although things don't seem great there, and the repo guys are still coming.

Things aren't entirely linear so far. The story goes back and forth between present and Aleph's past that led to this point. The escape from the hospital is shown in reverse, the end first, going back to what set it off. Part of the road trip is shown in reverse too, I think, because I feel like the RV crashed before the nervous young couple picked Aleph up. The windshield of their vehicle didn't match the RV's, so I don't think that was their vehicle. I don't know what that means yet. If that's how Aleph's mind works, focus on what's now and work back to where it started. If they're this focused on what they're pursuing that might make sense.

Hickman draws Laurelwood as basically a normal town with some unusual features bolted on. A strange car, Roombas keeping the streets clean, weird liquid metal things cross roads or dropping off rooftops. So a gradual infiltration of this futuristic stuff, to ease the shock of it. The inhabitants look mostly what we might think of as normal, although I haven't seen any kids yet. No usual appendages or outlandish fashion choices. A few new products at a time, see how people respond, then maybe a few more. But it isn't clear if the locals are really taking to the stuff or not.

Lot of questions, which is usually good. Questions mean they captured my interest. Whether I'll enjoy the answers, assuming there are any, is another matter, but cross that bridge when we get there.

Infinity 8 #13, by Lewis Trondheim and Davy Mourier (writers), Lorenzo de Felici (artist/color artist) - She should probably focus more on the undead grasping at her legs and less on whatever is in the distance. Unless she's saluting, in which case she should definitely focus more on the undead.

Fifth try at figuring out what's going on, and this time it's a Major Ann Ninurta on deck. Before she could even get to that, she had to drop her kid off at school, and arrest a person for shooting someone. While she's off exploring the vast graveyard in space, it turns out the murderer and his assistant were trying to test a resurrection gun of sorts, but obviously the assistant had to die first. Well, the gun works, but he comes back as a shambling, mindless creature that craves flesh and spreads his condition by biting people. Then the gun falls into some power conduit that carries its energy through the entire ship and the space graveyard, meaning everyone's in trouble now. Although i enjoy how she was mostly just annoyed when one of the zombies tried biting through her space helmet.

de Felici draws a decent variety of aliens, although he seems to lean towards them being small and kind of lumpy. But they mostly look suitably alien, so that's the important thing. He varies the size of Ann's eyes relative to the rest of her face by a lot. In some panels, they look about normal. In other panels they take up half her face. I can't tell that there's a pattern, so it's just a thing he has issues with. It isn't a huge issue except for being very distracting when I come across one of the panels where the eyes are enormous. I stop and just gawk, like what the hell happened there?

There's also a subplot about Ann's deadbeat ex, and also possibly her trying to hook up with some guy that caught her eye while she was on patrol? These stories usually have some sort of element beyond whatever trouble the agent runs into out in the graveyard, and I guess that's going to be this one's.