House of Fear: Attack of the Killer Snowmen. Jethro Morales (Writer and Art), Josh Jensen (Colours), Matt Krotzer (Letters). TEN31 Publishing (2017)

Highly enjoyable and engaging supernatural story. Three young friends, Tristan, Wyatt and Andi are playing with the snow, while another boy is making snowmen. He wants to be a wizard and appears to have a book of spells. When animated and distinctly dangerous snowmen appear Tristan, Wyatt and Andi have a sizeable fight on their hands.
Jethro Morales has written an all ages comic that respects its readers of all ages enough to support the key requirements of an supernatural adventure. The threat has to be severe enough to actually present a problem, the solution should arise from smart thinking not just brute force. The story delivers on both, the snowmen are the right side of nasty and they are the prelude to a distinctly more menacing problem. The three children are brave and resourceful, they work together and the way the solve the problem is smart and entirely credible in terms of the story.
The cast are swiftly and economically introduced and are never generic suburban children, they have strong expressive personalities, no one dominates, all have a substantial part to play. Adults exist but are not around to rescue anyone, the children have to solve and save themselves. The art is friendly and very engaging, the context moves from being safe to with deft confidence. The snowmen are great, the first wave are malicious snowmen, the next version is clearly a different order. The action is fast, has weight and impact and is never gory. The story does not need gore, just enough fear, courage, bravado and smart thinking to pull the reader in.
The colouring is great, it gives edge and weight to the details of the art and highlights the strangly burning glow in the snowmen to excellent effect.
The lettering quietly and subtly amplifies the nuances of the writing, the tonal shifts are indicated without being forced, the sound effects are nicely loud and crunchy.
It takes very considerable skill to get the balance right in a story like this, Jerome Morales makes it look easy and natural. A great fun read.

Pistil Zero -"STIGMA" Jessica Star Maison (Writer), Loni Elizabeth Watson (Art), Mark Anthony Macta (Inks, Colours, Letters). Wicked Trwee Press.

A burning, outraged story about sexual violence and retribution. I hate stories that use sexual violence as the point of transformation for a charterer into guise of the powerful lead character. It is repugnant and morally false. Sexual slavery is a blight on humanity and this story is rooted in the violence of sexual slavery and the way it transforms someone from victim to vigilante. It makes a fierce argument about brutal actions that is never a cynical exploitation , it is also a very engaging story that uses the possibilities of being a comic with confident skill and subtle detail.
Lita Soledad escaped from two years of sexual slavery to the USA, haunted by the spirits of her ancestors Las Adelitas, spirits who burn for vengeance. Lita hides the demands of her past and her ancestors untill news from a small town forces her to act in the shape of Pistil. A young girl was assulted and killed herself, now another girl falling into the orbit of the predator.
The story unfolds in an unexpected way, circumstances are not straightforward. The predator is unconstrained appetite, the girl is uncertain, unhappy and desperately seeking something. The story takes the time to give her the depth and scope that victims loose after the assault and they become solely victims. What is very interesting are the cast members that surround the predator, knowing and complicit without ever being actively involved, Jessica Star Maison has a strong opinion about them.
Loni Elizabeth Watson's art is a pleasure, very clearly the work of an creative individual, it manages the time shifts of the story with ease and delivers action and conversation with lovely detail.
The cast are not drawn with naturalistic detail, they are vividly expressive and the use of panels to develop the ideas of the story is masterful. When action is required it is harsh and forceful.
Mark Anthony Macta's inks and colours bring out the details of the art and powerfully deliver the emotional tone of the story. The page where Lita becomes Pistil is superbly done, all the elements of the story combine to great effect.
Pistil is a full tilt story. the creators have made a choice and expressed it with skill, detail and determination, hey have also delivered a story that engages the reader and made a super comic. Fantastic.

Dicken's England. An A - Z Tour of the Real and Imagined Locations. Tony Lynch (Batsford. 2012)

A brilliant idea wonderfully executed. Charles Dickens wrote about places with the same immortal  genius that he wrote about the people in those locations. They are inextricably linked as the cast, the action and the context combine with each other to entice and entrance the reader. Tony Lynch has organised an alphabetical tour of the locations that Dickens's wrote about and that were significant in his life and delivered a deeply engaging book. Each entry has just enough information about it, if it is an actual location it has the historical and current information. Where it is featured in any of Dickens's writings a carefully chosen quotation is provided. The book requires a familiarity with Dickens's works, sufficient biographical details are provided, the cast from the writing are named as familiar friends rather than signposts to literary learning.
The alphabetical organisation solves a significant problem, it allows the biographical and the fictional to be treated equally and allows for multiple views of locations to be set up as they emerge under different guises.
The writing is informative and engaging, there is a considerable depth of research worn lightly as the locations are identified if still existing and given context if they have vanished. The biographical details are used to explain the relevance of a location, the quotes from the writing are used to spotlight the importance of context for Dickens. The balance in the book is confidently maintained, frequently a character is mentioned without a quote, the action is identified only. Sometimes extensive details are provided or longer quotes that given a strong reminder that Dickens wrote to be read.
Tony Lynch has taken an unexpected route to explore Charles Dickens and it is a joy and a pleasure to go along this tour, to revisit the stories in an unusual light and angle and be reminded of the astounding torrent of humanity that roam the locations of Dickens imagination.

Resurrection Men 1. N.S. Paul (Writer), R. Donald (Art) www.nspaul.co.uk (2017)

 A hugely enjoyable and engagingly fresh take on zombies. a smart idea that is executed with confident skill and detail. A widower has his son involved in a fatal accident and somehow restores him. This attracts the attention of some very unpleasant people who are very interested in this talent. Leveraging grief and fear for his son they draw the father into their plans.
N.S. Paul has taken a different route into a zombie story and it creates a different atmosphere and set of story possibilities that are very enticing. A man who has lost his wife to death and may or may not have lost his son is already out of his depth in his own life, when he becomes entangled with someone who has plans for those who have been resurrected the depth increase as does the surrounding darkness and malice. The story sets up everything with deft economy and wonderful confidence. The reader can relax into the story as it unwinds in unexpected and engaging ways.
  R. Donald's art is a pleasure to read and brings the story forward on every level. The use of panels to control the story is superb, the pacing and flow of the story is carefully managed and the emotional tones are brought to the fore with subtle force. The cast are expressive with out ever overacting, the body language and their faces reveal them naturally and with impact. The colours are suitably subdued and used with stunning effect to create the compositions and give depth and detail to the art.
This is a great comic, all the elements work with each other to deliver the story and bring the reader into it, a great comic and a great story. The possibilities have been set up and I greatly look forward to seeing how they are embraced by the creative team.

Deluge 1-3. J.D.Oliva (Writer), Richard P. Clark (Art & Letters). (https://readcomics.io/comic/deluge-2016)

A hugely enjoyable and entertaining cat and mouse crime story set in the flooded  New Orleans in 2005.Following the flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina, a group of New Orleans police officers are patrolling using a rowing boat.Their reaction to a man stranded on a rooftop indicates that it may not be a search and rescue mission.S flashback introduces a undercover FBI agent who is working in New Orleans and is presently trapped by the flooding. Who is the cast and who is the mouse shifts nicely as the story unfolds and it nicely sidesteps reader expectations.
For a cat and mouse story to be effective there has to be a compelling context that effectively traps the cat and the mouse and can shelter or expose one or the other at any point. J.D.Olivia uses the  flooded New Orleans to great effect in this role. The flood limits everyone's room for maneuver and severely increases the pressure on all the cast as matters spiral out of control. The cast are engaging and economically introduced via action to the reader, they are as shifty and dangerous as the flood waters and everyone is struggling to maintain control.
Richard P. Clark's art is friendly and engaging, capturing the action and reaction as the cast respond to each other. The context is wonderfully evoked, the rooftops that are the small island in the the flood make you fiercely exposed as well as dry, the flood interiors can be a sanctuary or a trap. The cast are individual and expressive, the action has physical force and impact, the conversations ripple with tension. The colouring  brings definition and weight to the context and cast.
This is a bare bones story that stands or falls on the way that the action and cast are managed, the creators wring every drop of tension and engagement from the story, giving the reader a great deal of pleasure in the process.

Star Power Volume 1: Star Power and the 9th Wormhole. Michael Terracciano (Writer), Garth Graham (Art).

Very engaging and enjoyable science fiction superhero story. Danica Maris is employed on Space Station Sanctury Six as as assistant astronomer until she becomes the Star Power Sentinal, an ancient threath has returned and the Star Power Sentinal is needed again.
The story is a classic superhero set up delivered with tremendous confidence and energy that shows why the genre is so resilient, done well it is very engaging and enjoyable. Michael Terracciano respects the readers enough to provide a straightforward superhero story that embraces the genre with energy and confident skill. The two significant problems of a superhero storyy are managed with care and telling detail. The first is the origin of the superhero, Michael Terraccianohas chosen the transformation route which can be tricky to pull off. How to transform a slightly marginal character into the superhero without annoying a reader is a difficult task, this is part of the essential fantasy of a superhero, the key link for the reader to the character. The transformation in Star Power is very nicely done, Danica Maris is introduced and transformed with skillful economy and attention to detail, the story is in part the extension of the transformation as Danica Maris comes to terms with being Star Power.
The second problem is the opposition, if they are not  powerful enough to be a problem for a superhero then there is no dramatic tension in the story. Michael Terracciano has made this look easy, the threat is substantial and requires the full power and brains of the superhero to manage, it is a happily close fought struggle. The end may never have been in doubt, the journey is great fun and nicely unexpected. 
Garth Graham is a superb science fiction superhero artist, the cast, context and action are exactly what they should be. The cosmic context is created and supported with telling detail, the physical space of the space stations are done with tremendous flair, they feel right, functional and futuristic at the same time. The cast are great, Star Power is clearly a human female without being grotesquely disproportionate, the opposition are different, expressive and powerful. The colouring is science fiction colouring that captures the emotional tones and nuances of the story with care, it gives the context shape and definition critical to supporting the action.
Comics are a natural home for science fiction and Star Power is a hugely enjoyable comic that happily reminds readers why superheros are so much fun.

Snow by Night. Volume 1: Calcination. Eric Menge (Writer, Letters), Brittany Michel (Pencils, Inks), Natalie BaakLini, Britany Michel (Colours), Mythmakers LLC (2017)

A charming and enjoyable fairy story that a very welcome edge. Two thieves, Blaise and Lassart  make a fine living in the town of Sherbourg. Then they find that someone else is getting to their targets ahead of them, a very capable thief who is also robbing from people who have paid protection to to Blaise and Lassart. They hset out to discover who the thief is and when they do they realise that there is much more going on that they had thought.
Eric Menge uses the genre of charming rogues who find that they are playing for higher stakes than they had counted on to great effect by confidently making the rogues rather less charming and rather more thoroughly criminal. They are professional thieves, they may be able to be charming, they are also professionally hard and willing to act harshly to achieve their aims. This gives the story a greater bite and force and means that those who are equally professionally putting pressure on Blaise and Lassart are a genuine threat. Putting the new thief into this mix is skillfully done, a very different motivation pushes the story nicely and sets up the story possibilities in a very engaging and enjoyable way.
The art is engaging and enjoyable, the faux historical context is drawn with detail and energy, this is a costume adventure story with taverns, merchant houses and tricorn hats. Brittany Michel takes advantages of the possibilities to dress the cast with care and the relevant details are provided to ensure that the action is always given the setting it needs. The cast are strongly individual and full of expressive personality, they move through the context with physical force and speed. The fairy tale elements are very nicely integrated within the story and they do not overwhelm or undermine the story.The colours capture the tone of the story with subtle care and give the details of the story shape and clarity.
The creators confidently mix genres  and drive the story with deep skill, balancing the elements so that the reader is engaged and charmed while the story has enough depth and possibilities to leave them waning to see how it will unfurl.