Fantasy Noir
Apr. 5th, 2007 10:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexxkayI'm still reading the Harry Dresden books. They're improving slightly in quality as the series goes on, though I still wouldn't say that they're 'good'. And yet, he does keep me turning pages and buying books...
I've been buying these in omnibuses from the Science Fiction Book Club. The cover artist generally does a good job of conveying the feel of 'hardboiled fantasy', although the first two covers were more symbolic than actual depictions of anything that happened in the book(s). I was happy to find that trend broken with the third collection. It was such an awesomely cool cover image that I would have been disappointed if it was only the artist being imaginative. But yes, in the climax of book seven, Harry Dresden does get to ride around the storm-tossed streets of Chicago on the back of a Zombie Tyrannosaurus Rex.
The actual scene is even wackier than the cover image conveys. This is just any random T-rex; it's the reanimated remains of Sue, from the Museum of Natural History. And Harry's, er, 'copilot' isn't depicted. Within the mythology set up in this book, keeping an undead under control requires the use of a 'drummer' to keep up a constant beat. Harry, as usual, doesn't have the time or resources to hire good help, and has to make due with whatever eclectic friends are handy. So further down the back of the dinosaur is a mortician wearing a one-man-band "polka suit".
But when it comes to film noir / fantasy gumshoes in a wacky environment, Dresden is still second-rate at best. I was reminded of this recently, when I picked up the latest reprint volume of Grimjack.
This volume is the start of the run with Tom Mandrake doing art, and probably the highest point since Tim Truman left. It starts with a lengthy story of Grimjack helping his girlfriend, the ghost known only as 'Spook', find a sort of peace in her home dimension, though getting more emotional trauma for himself in the process. The trauma piles deeper when he returns to Cynosure, leading him into a dangerously suicidal attack on some old enemies. In which he gets himself *killed*. The final stories in this volume are the funeral and the wake.
I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to reveal that he doesn't stay dead permanently. But one of the benefits of being an independent comic is that the death wasn't trivialized. He stayed dead longer than any headliner for a non-cancelled Marvel comic would have in the 1980s, and the event did have permanent consequences on both Grimjack himself and on his entire supporting cast.
I know all this, because I have the entire run in the original issues. So why is a cheapskate like me buying the reprint volumes? Several reasons. The book format makes it easier both to re-read these, and to loan them to friends who've never read them. I've gotten enough enjoyment out of these stories over the years that I don't begrudge the authors extra money on them. Most importantly, though, I want to read *new* Grimjack stories, and keeping the property alive and profitable makes that more likely.
I've been buying these in omnibuses from the Science Fiction Book Club. The cover artist generally does a good job of conveying the feel of 'hardboiled fantasy', although the first two covers were more symbolic than actual depictions of anything that happened in the book(s). I was happy to find that trend broken with the third collection. It was such an awesomely cool cover image that I would have been disappointed if it was only the artist being imaginative. But yes, in the climax of book seven, Harry Dresden does get to ride around the storm-tossed streets of Chicago on the back of a Zombie Tyrannosaurus Rex.
The actual scene is even wackier than the cover image conveys. This is just any random T-rex; it's the reanimated remains of Sue, from the Museum of Natural History. And Harry's, er, 'copilot' isn't depicted. Within the mythology set up in this book, keeping an undead under control requires the use of a 'drummer' to keep up a constant beat. Harry, as usual, doesn't have the time or resources to hire good help, and has to make due with whatever eclectic friends are handy. So further down the back of the dinosaur is a mortician wearing a one-man-band "polka suit".
But when it comes to film noir / fantasy gumshoes in a wacky environment, Dresden is still second-rate at best. I was reminded of this recently, when I picked up the latest reprint volume of Grimjack.
This volume is the start of the run with Tom Mandrake doing art, and probably the highest point since Tim Truman left. It starts with a lengthy story of Grimjack helping his girlfriend, the ghost known only as 'Spook', find a sort of peace in her home dimension, though getting more emotional trauma for himself in the process. The trauma piles deeper when he returns to Cynosure, leading him into a dangerously suicidal attack on some old enemies. In which he gets himself *killed*. The final stories in this volume are the funeral and the wake.
I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to reveal that he doesn't stay dead permanently. But one of the benefits of being an independent comic is that the death wasn't trivialized. He stayed dead longer than any headliner for a non-cancelled Marvel comic would have in the 1980s, and the event did have permanent consequences on both Grimjack himself and on his entire supporting cast.
I know all this, because I have the entire run in the original issues. So why is a cheapskate like me buying the reprint volumes? Several reasons. The book format makes it easier both to re-read these, and to loan them to friends who've never read them. I've gotten enough enjoyment out of these stories over the years that I don't begrudge the authors extra money on them. Most importantly, though, I want to read *new* Grimjack stories, and keeping the property alive and profitable makes that more likely.