Review: The Occultist #1

This comic title is a little misleading as this is actually a continuation of a series from a couple years back.  So saying it’s a #1 is like saying that someone who changes majors is a freshman again.  This also means that there is some background that it assumes the reader has a familiarity with, but it’s not anything you can’t learn as you go.

Rob Bailey is the Occultist, a spellslinging hero given his powers by the Sword, a mystical book of immense power.  He fights the undead with the help of Detective Melendez, this time hunting down a creature that’s been eating animals in the area, while trying to keep up with his college studies.  Except the college student part doesn’t seem to be much of a focus from what I saw in this issue…

The art reminds me of someone else’s work, but I can’t put my finger on it.  I loved the design of the main character though.  In full, superhero regalia, he looks like a professional superhero, one that would fit with any superhero group, the Justice League, the Avengers.  But when he removes his cloak he immediately looks like a kid in a costume, which I think is a great hero transformation.  I’m not sure if we have Mike Norton to thank for that (he did the art for this issue) or Guy Davis from back in 2010, but it’s a very well done transition, as I did not expect him to look like he does.  But then again, isn’t that the very point of a superhero’s disguise?

I did have a small problem with this comic and that’s that I wasn’t really drawn in.  I liked the idea of a superhero with untold magical power fighting the undead, but all I got out of this comic is confirmation that it’s not bad.  It’s like asking someone if a movie was bad, they say no, their phone rings and they have to go without further explaining their stance on the movie.  For an issue 1, for trying to build excitement to get the series going, it just didn’t do that.  At best it got me to want to read the next issue to see if it gets any better.

I really need to see more before I can form a full opinion, but for now, I’ll say it’s not worth the $3.50.  Even though it’s standard for a 32 page comic like this one, this just didn’t quite earn it.

Matthew Bryant, a.k.a. Baker Street Holmes, is a writer and lead editor for the Red Shirt Crew.  His birthday is coming up soon and would like some ice cream, some good books and a better recipe for pan galactic garglebasters than the last one he made, as there was too much Hypermint Extract.  You can follow him on Twitter at @BStreetHolmes or email him at HMCrazySS@gmail.com.

Review: Empowered Special: Nine Beers with Ninjette

Empowered is a series that has been running for a few years, since 2007, written by Adam Warren and with art by Takeshi Miyazawa, described by Warren as a “sexy superhero comedy”.  Nine Beers with Ninjette is basically a background summary for Ninjette, Empowered’s alcoholic, ninja best friend.  It’s serious, more serious than I’m taken to believe the series usually is, but it’s an appropriate choice for a background montage.

The great thing about this comic is that it works even without a background in the overall series.  Empowered introduces the reader to the barebones background, just enough that you know the main characters from the series and how they connect to one another.  Ninjette and her drinking habits get introduced in more length obviously.  I found this part interesting in part because while the main story is done in traditional manga style, the intro looks more like the sketches before they are cleaned up and finalized.  It’s unusual to change styles in the course of a comic like that, but with the placement it works.

The other unusual thing that works here is that the story is almost entirely told in flashbacks, but the narrator, Ninjette after the intro concludes, narrates in the flashbacks.  That is to say the narration is done not in voice overs, but in speech bubbles coming from the past version of Ninjette.  It’s different, but I really liked it.  It doesn’t seem like it would work, but the dialog in the flash back is less than important, so it ends up working just fine.

As for the story itself, the clever approach used is to tell the memory that’s brought up by each beer as Ninjette works through her usually nightly binge.  It follows a logical, albeit non-chronological sequence, but not following the chronological order makes it seem more natural.  You don’t normally get to know someone starting with their earliest recollection and working your way towards the day you met them.  Likewise, we start with the stories she’s most willing to tell and as she get’s more tipsy/drunker, she becomes more willing to tell the more personal stories.

I recommend this comic to anyone who likes the series or wants to look at a different way of telling a character background.  It’s not really a story for enjoyment, that is, it’s not really a story meant to be read for the plot, but it is quite well done, and as I have repeatedly mentioned, rather unique in its style.  For $3.99, it’s your call as to if it’s worth it.

Matthew Bryant, a.k.a. Baker Street Holmes, is a writer and lead editor for the Red Shirt Crew and would love to tell you the stories that come to his mind with each drink on those occasions when he does drink.  Maybe that could be a podcast some day…  If you want to follow him on Twitter, you can find him at @BStreetHolmes, or email him at HMCrazySS@gmail.com.

Review: Dark Horse Presents #28

It is with great sadness that I must announce for the first time that I do not recommend an issue of Dark Horse Presents.  If you have read any of my reviews of the Dark Horse Series, you know that I tend to gush about how there’s always far more good than bad in these issues.  Not this time.

Chapter 1 of The Strain: The Fall – The Silver Angel is a little strange for me since I’m only familiar with The Strain setting through Brendan’s reviews.  It’s chapter 1, but I haven’t been given anything to be excited about for the second chapter.  The Silver Angel, seems like a potentially interesting character, but we just don’t get much to go on in this comic.

Chapter 9 of Blood is likewise an odd comic, because it picks up where chapter 8 left off.  A year an a half ago.  And it’s not like a new story, it starts in the middle of the action.  I have NO idea what’s going on.  It doesn’t help that I missed the “to be continued” at the end of the The Strain and Blood didn’t have title page, so I figured the stylistic change was intentional (since it wasn’t major).  This just made me more confused and I had to read the whole thing twice.

The Assignation is an adaptation of Edgar Alan Poe’s story of the same name.  I liked this one, but I think it only works as a single issue.  It’s a great story, and this is a wonderful adaptation, though I am usually a fan of comic book adaptations of literary works.  Credit to Richard Corben, especially because his artwork here is just gorgeous.


Chapter 9 of Alabaster: Boxcar Tales just doesn’t really go anywhere.  The raven/narrator meets up with the ghost seen back in Chapter 4 and they have a little philosophical discussion of the nature of coincidence and fate.  This is never one of my favorite series, but considering the slim pickings this month, I’m pleased to see a little tease at the end that makes this seem like one of the brighter prospects for next month.

Chapters 1 and 2 of Mrs. Plopsworths Kitchen are just plain annoying.  I think these are just evidence of how desperate the editors for the Dark Horse Presents series were for comics this month, because they not only put two chapters of it in (each only half the length of a normal chapter) but split them up, and neither is all that amusing.  Patrick Alexander has always given things that were amusing and cute, but only run for one issue and I’ve typically liked both of those things about his work.  This time was not as enjoyable.

Chapter 5 of Trekker: The Train to Avalon Bay is more action packed than the others we’ve seen thus far, and for that I was immensely thankful.  Also, I may be using a Leechbear or two in my next roleplaying adventure…  Anyways, this chapter is one of the few in this issue that made reading it not quite such a waste of time.  Another bonus, every chapter since the second has helped to allay my concerns that she was a Mary Sue.

Chapter 3 of Nosferatu Wars is the other continuing series that I enjoyed.  This has been a beautiful, poetic series and it’s sad knowing that the next chapter will be the last.  We get a taste of the main character’s backgrounds this time, but also a glimpse at their cunning and brutality.  The best chapter yet!

Chapter 2 of Mr. Monster: Dark Stearn was a surprise, though it shouldn’t have been.  The first chapter I believe addressed the idea of superheroes causing collateral damage and the traditional “be careful what you wish for” lesson wonderfully.  I didn’t realize at the time that this was going to be a continuing series (though “Chapter 1” should have been a clue) and honestly, this chapter does add much, unless it is a bridge to an amazing conclusion, but at this point I don’t have high hopes.

Chapter 3 of Juice Squeezers: Squish is much like the first chapter, in that nothing happens.  Looking back at the three chapter series, I think as a whole comic, it would work just fine, but cutting it into pieces like this does the first and last chapters a major disservice.  All the interesting stuff has happened by now.

Sabertooth Swordsman was also odd. It looks like it could have huge potential, but this issue is basically a discussion between a large viper and the titular Sabertooth over the “every end is a beginning”, “when one door closes, another door opens” cliche philosophy and discussing the “why bother, we’re all going to die eventually” mentality, too.  I make that sounds like I didn’t enjoy this comic, but I think that was just the grumpy mood I was in at this point, and the fact that a Sabertooth Swordsman and a giant serpent could have made a badass fight and there is a lot of talking going on instead.  Still, there is supposedly a graphic novel coming out about the Sabertooth Swordsman, so the concept at least has offered some hope for that, even if this particular story was a bit of a flop.

All in all, if you couldn’t tell, I would not recommend this issue of Dark Horse Presents. A little Poe, some Trekker and the next piece of Nosferatu Wars are worth reading, but not for $7.99.  It’s disappointing that they get so screwed by their bedfellows.

Matthew Bryant, a.k.a. Baker Street Holmes, isn’t sure he’s looking forward to the next issue of Dark Horse Presents for the first time since the Red Shirt Crew began reviewing comics.  This was just sad.  The table of contents even has formatting issues!  *Grumble, Grumble*  You can follow him on Twitter at @BStreetHolmes or email him at HMCrazySS@gmail.com.

Review: Itty Bitty Hellboy #2

Art Baltazar and Franco do it again with the second installment of Itty Bitty Hellboy. The freaking CUTENESS OVERLOAD that is cult-classic character miniaturized begs the question of: why haven’t more people done this. The fact that they were able to take the Hellboy series and make it funny is quite a feat that seems so easy when you put them as cute characters on colorful landscapes. Itty Bitty Hellboy is like Calvin and Hobbes for grown-ups, or even, well, Hellboy for kids. That overlap adds to the brilliance because Hellboy has been around long enough to become a classic, but not too long to become obscure leading to the nostalgia value for all the mature readers and the interest value for the young ones. This comic taps into a unique niche that caters to all crowds evenly, and does so brilliantly.

The writing makes it so that the character traits are still intact, while putting on a scale of childhood games (and not apocalyptic forces). Hellboy, for example, maintains that belligerence and stubbornness as his character intrinsically has, but instead of being a hot-headed renegade, he is closer to a small annoying child. That being said, it puts in on a relatable scale because it reminds you of your childhood, or how children you know act. This also makes every character likable regardless because it adds that additional, personal touch to it.

The comedy of it all happens in semi-stand-alone stories where the punchline is so ridiculous that you know only kids would do something like that. Needless to say, even though the focus is on comedy, there does appear to be a bigger overarching plot to the comic, but its so subtle that you don’t really pay attention to it, just sorta figure it’s there.

I talked a bit about the art in my prior post which I recommend giving a skim if you want to get into this series. Overall, I just love this comic. It’s lighthearted and fun while staying true to it’s namesake. I highly recommend to anyone for the cover price of $2.99. It’s one of those comics that you read it once and can read again in a month and it will still be funny. Art Baltazar and Franco, I hope you keep up the good work!

Brendan looks forward to more cuteness and fun when the next comic is done. If you want to keep up with all his antics, follow him on twitter (@bigmacd101). Hopefully he will be doing something more creative soon, so keep an ear to the ground. 

Review: The Strain, The Fall #3

I feel like there is just something I don’t understand here. After reading The Strain, The Fall #3, by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, I think the reason why I didn’t like the first two issues was because they were both setting up for something. Similarly, this comic is setting up for… well something. That’s the thing, it’s very unclear what it is setting up for, which for some leaves the reader in suspense; personally I’m just confused and bored because I find it hard to get excited or suspenseful for something that I don’t really know what it is. I know that there is going to be some showdown to decide the fate of the world, but I’m not sure if I know that from reading the comic or just the summary on the cover.

I’m not going to bore you by rehashing all my other bashing in earlier comics, so I left a link for you if you want to give a quick skim of how twilight is a better vampire story then this comic. I also suspect that the author is reading the blog because there’s about a page of blog bashing, which is not cool by the way. Thankfully, it relieves me of any bad comic reviewing I’ve done for this series.

The main problem is that the voice of the entire comic is far too passive. It’s all about the set-up and the history rather directly addressing the problem at hand. While I don’t agree with the choice of using the “vampires”, it doesn’t change the fact that you have to fight them. That is a very active thing. If I wanted to shoot the breeze and talk about vampire apocalypses and occult and crap, I can do that any time. What I can’t do is freaking fight them. That what I want to read about. Buffy fights them Twilight falls in love with them, all these character do is talk about them.

Not to mention that there is now yet another new character with an unexplained backstory that apparently came in earlier Dark Horse Presents. While it may be a plot to sell more comics (bravo by the way), it sincerely pissed me off. I want to know the current, existing characters! Not to mention after reading this series, I don’t actually want to read anything remotely related to this.

After all the set-up, the last comic better be good. I’m talking shit needs to hit multiple fans from like rebounds and ricochets and crap. I want to see the last comic just so I can know that it’s over. Overall, I would not recommend this, not for $3.99. You’ll probably be fine just reading about the prospective “thrilling conclusion”. If the conclusion is good enough, you might want to go back and read the earlier ones to enhance the experience, otherwise, don’t bother. Lastly, if all blog readers are crazy people like the author says, please be the most awesome crazy people and in the comments section, roll your head on the keyboard and submit that. Over and out.

Brendan is hoping to read something good for his next review, Fingers crossed. Until then can be stalked on the twitter thingy @bigmacd101. Also to do his part for the insanity: ujhhygtfvrvtghyujknhygtfr.

Review: Brain Boy #1

I’ve been a fan of Brain Boy since he first reappeared in Dark Horse Presents #23 (he had a brief, 6 issue run with Dell Comics in the ’60s) and was pleasantly surprised to see that this month saw the start of a three issue story just about him!  I was not disappointed, and am already antsy to get my hands on the next issue.

I’ve commented before, but I am a sucker for a superhero.  Growing up, I always wanted super powers (Hell, if someone out there knows how I can get some now, send me an email to the address at the bottom).  But unfortunately, reading through Dark Horse Presents issues has yielded few supers.  It did however give me Brain Boy and I have been loving it ever since.

Matt Price is a psychic.  A powerful one.  Because of this ability, he has been trained by Albright Industries and contracted out to the United States Secret Service.  But sometimes, sometimes it goes wrong (actually, every time we get a story arch, because if everything went according to plan, it wouldn’t be very interesting, now would it?)

This issue, more so than the Dark Horse Presents short series, touches on Price’s life as a psychic.  He is bored by people and approaches them arrogantly, because they can’t surprise him.  Usually.  We see some of the over-confidence in this issue.  Honestly, the idea of a super hero being either a super nice guy, or a gruff antihero is to rough for my tastes, and I prefer the character in the middle.

I really liked this issue, and it makes me really excited for issues 2 and 3.  At least two other supers to deal with, and they’ve both bested him once a piece already.  If you are a superhero fan, check it out, it’s fantastic and totally worth getting for $2.99.

Matthew Bryant, a.k.a. Baker Street Holmes, is the lead editor and a writer for the Red Shirt Crew.  If you are offering superpowers, he would prefer retractable wings or magic, but will accept powers of all kinds.  Unless they would cause him to die, like only being able to breathe in a mercury rich environment or the ability to remove his head, but not protecting him from bleeding out when it happens.  You can follow him on Twitter at @BStreetHolmes or email him at HMCrazySS@gmail.com.

Review: Dream Thief #5

I always have trouble assessing endings, which is probably related to the difficulty of writing endings. Trying to take something that otherwise had momentum from one installment to another and ending it in a satisfying way is really difficult, and I don’t begrudge anyone the difficulty in doing so. Unfortunately, for something that I’ve been so enthusiastic about so far, Dream Thief #5 (written by Jai Nitz, illustrated by Greg Smallwood) leaves me a little mixed with how it wraps the series up.

Like I said with the end of the last issue, they changed the way that the issues had typically ended up to that point. We’d always seen John right after he wakes up from a murderous rampage, but in that issue, it ended right before he was knocked unconscious and went on one of said rampages. I really liked the change of pace, and this picks up logically from that point. The problem is, it gets confusing rather quickly, and I had some difficulty with following exactly what was going on and why. Part of this is directly caused by that change of pace – while it was a welcome change, it also completely threw me off and I spent a lot of the issue trying to catch up with what was happening.

You’re definitely going to want to reread the previous issues before picking this up. So much from the early issues is referenced, so once I went back and read those, everything came together and clicked in such a way that wrapping up the story actually became pretty satisfying, if still somewhat disjointed. My one problem, and maybe it’s just me, comes from one element of the story that wasn’t set up well and always feels like a cheap way to tell a story. It doesn’t ruin it and I don’t want to spoil it, but it has nagged at me consistently since I read it.

Greg Smallwood continues to be really good, but I don’t want to talk about his art here. Instead, I’m going to talk about the last few pages of the issue, after the editorial page. For each issue (and these better be compiled for the trade), they include other artists’ interpretations of the characters and various scenes at the very end. I’ve quite enjoyed seeing those, especially since you often get locked into a specific look and feel for a character during a specific artist’s run on a comic, and seeing all of these reminds me of how much of an impact the artist and their style has on a character – it isn’t quite the John Lincoln I’m familiar with, and getting that reminder when I’m such a writing-oriented reader is something I need, along with a really interesting extra feature that most comics would never really feature.

Overall, my recommendation is simple. If you liked the previous issues, you’ll want to see the end and it’ll be worth your $3.99 to get there, even though it doesn’t quite feel like the rest. If you haven’t been interested, there’s nothing groundbreaking here that’ll bring you in. If you’re on the fence, you might want to wait for the trade to come out (they announce on the editorial page that it’s coming out March 12, 2014, though I’ve seen no official confirmation from Dark Horse). Regardless of that, I’m a little mixed, but I think I need to give it some time to sink in before I really pass judgment on how it ends (maybe I’ll revisit it when the trade comes out).

Zac Kandell (known mostly on the internet as Mischlings) wants to like endings, but finds that he oddly likes the perpetual middle. If you find what he says interesting, follow him on Twitter at @Mischlings for more, shorter thoughts.

Review: X #5

X continues, but in the aftermath of the last story arch this issue just doesn’t cut it.  It’s not bad exactly, but I’ve liked this series and yet this issue wasn’t quite up to par.  I’ll give you the good and the bad, after the jump.

I like that X is back, but this was not the way to come back.  We just concluded a story arch from X #0 to X #4, where X #0 set things up by introducing the main character and presenting the readers with the situation: X is bringing down the corrupt and has one more on his list, Berkshire.  Hunting and killing Berkshire is the focus of the next four issues.

In this issue, X explains to Leigh that he’s sure someone will undoubtedly step up to fill the void left by Berkshire and that he wasn’t to be ready when that happens.  And we are promptly presented with a trio of enemies who want to do just that.  But unlike in X #0, there doesn’t seem to be a set up for a longer plot here.  It feels very much like the first 10 minutes of the first episode of season 2 of most TV shows: catching up on what the characters have been doing since the season one finale.  But if we take a “season” to be 5 issues, this is like having 4 episodes of nothing but the boring intermediate events before the new season actually starts doing episodes.

It wasn’t a complete loss, because we get some interesting character development: what’s X and Leigh’s partnership like now and a little hint that X might not be healing well from his fight with Berkshire, mentally or physically.  But I don’t see how these tidbits couldn’t have been worked into a larger story.

Now, I believe there are a couple other series which pause after each story arch for what is effectively a one-shot, and perhaps we just haven’t gotten far enough into this series to see that the same pattern will apply here.  As a one-shot this comic works well, and in fact if you want to get into this series, but you don’t want to go buy the first five issues, this is not a bad place to enter.  It’s also possible that the events of this comic are tightly linked to the events to come, and Swierczynski is just playing it’s connection close to his chest.  I just don’t know yet.

I really only recommend this issue if you are new to X and want a good place to come in.  Nothing cool or seemingly important happens here and if you’re already a fan, you might as well just wait for the next issue.  As always, X #5 is just $2.99, and the series has been good so it’s a great place to enter.

Matthew Bryant, aka Baker Street Holmes, is a writer and editor for the Red Shirt Crew.  He would like to apologize for the tardiness of this review, but he was making a transatlantic transition.  If you want to follow him on Twitter you can find him at @BStreetHolmes, or you can email him at HMCrazySS@gmail.com.

Review: Catalyst Comix #3

With Amala’s Blade and Angel & Faith having recently ended, Catalyst Comix is now the Dark Horse comic that I look most forward to each month (well, maybe on par with Dream Thief, which also will end soon), which I consider high praise since about one quarter of it has gone right over my head the entire time. While I have my issues with it, let’s see what Catalyst Comix #3 (written by Joe Casey, illustrated by Dan McDaid, Ulises Farinas, and Paul Maybury) has in store.

When the last issue ended, I had no idea where they were going to take Frank Wells and his story. Things went in a really different direction than I had expected given the rather explosive beginning in the first issue, but now I’m seeing where that actually goes, and I really like it. I’m not going to tell you what it is because it’s something you need to discover as you read. It’s not something new at all to comics, so don’t expect the reinvention of comics as an art form, but it’s a change in direction to almost the polar opposite of how it started that they somehow manage to pull off. They’re not too heavy handed or awkwardly trying to shove a character where they don’t fit – they spent almost two issues making sure this transition happened smoothly. It doesn’t all work perfectly, as there’s a subplot that feels like it should mean something to me but I don’t understand, but it’s only a couple pages in an otherwise really good story.

The Grace storyline is finally starting to click. I’m still not entirely sure I follow all of it, but a new character was introduced that made it feel like things were finally starting to move forward. This character, Seaver, seems like someone of significance to the universe before the recent reboot, but regardless of that, he serves as some form of opposition to Grace. With his presence, there’s finally some sort of conflict which was missing before, and the story feels like it’s finally going somewhere.

Then, on to the section with my favorite name, Wolfhunter and Elvis Warmaker, more correctly known as Agents of Change (and no, I don’t think I will ever get tired of this gag). For all the improvement to Grace’s storyline, this one is starting to lose me, so apparently there has to be at least one storyline in each issue that I don’t quite get. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting from the end of the previous issue, but they don’t go there and it throws me off badly. It doesn’t ignore the reveal, but it’s much less important than the end of the last issue would make you believe. For that reason, the story ends up being more confusing and disorienting than anything else, which is a disappointment for a segment I’ve loved so much so far.

I continue to really enjoy the art. Frank Wells’s story has a lot of different locations and styles blended together flawlessly, helping greatly to keep the tone from feeling jarring throughout. Grace continues to have really interestingly designed locations, and her adversary Seaver has, while a little cliche, a well-done design that is just mildly off-putting. Nothing jumped out at me in the other series this time, but I still love the design of the characters – while it’s not new, that doesn’t mean it’s not good.

All things said, I still definitely recommend this book. I’ve absolutely loved the Frank Wells story from the beginning and I think that alone is worth $2.99, which I still can’t believe is the price for issues in this series. Grace’s story is starting to pick up, and I haven’t given up on Wolfhunter and Elvis Warmaker (not after one bad issue, since Grace’s story went through two), so there’s plenty of interesting stuff going on in this series still.

Zac Kandell (known mostly on the internet as Mischlings) is mildly disappointed in his buddies with the amazing names. If you find what he says interesting, follow him on Twitter at @Mischlings for more, shorter thoughts.

Review: Itty Bitty Hellboy

Itty bitty Hellboy, by Art Baltazar & Franco, is where geekdom meets hilarium. If you’re hoping that the person reviewing thing this comic is a person that is a Hellboy fanatic then I recommend looking for another review. Truth be told I asked my dad who on the cover he recognized, and even that was not a whole lot. I will say this, this single comic made me want to get know the rest of the hellboy franchise, so remember that when trolling me on the comic.

I could not wait to review itty bitty Hellboy when I saw it was available, because it didn’t need the experience of a drone wars or buffy expertise, yet had the elbow room to improve the comic hilarium. I, personally, do not know Hellboy, but I am a huge fan of the sunday comics, from Garfield to the Peanuts. Itty Bitty Hellboy is the perfect combination of Sunday comic and cult, nerd following.

Contrary to my other reviews, I think I should review the art first. Its colourful, geometric characters make it fun and light hearted. It reminded me of when I used to read the funnies in the newspaper or read collections of Calvin and Hobbes or Shoe. I know it’s Hellboy, but it’s SO FRIGGIN’ CUTE! Just looking at the art, I could feel nostalgia oozing from my pores.

The stand alone style works well for a comedy, with 2-4 page stories that are just light hearted and fun. It still has the “good guy vs. bad guys” construct, but the opposing bases are a refrigerator box and a dishwasher box. It’s like when you were a kid playing make-believe with your friends, but with the lovable Hellboy characters (because they don’t have to pretend to have superpowers).

Bottom line, this comic, or anthology of short stand-alones, just makes you feel good, and in the end, what’s better than that? At the $2.99 cover price, you get 6 of these stories. Considering its half a dollar per funny, it is a must for any Hellboy fan or funny pages enthusiast. I definitely recommend it and hope for more work from the authors.

Brendan will soon be reunited with maristplayboy at which point let the insanity ensue. Currently, he’s deciding if he should read every Calvin and Hobbes comic again or refamiliarise himself with Hellboy. Until then be sure to keep an ear to the ground for him.