Image Comics Month

If such a thing could be called it, 1963 is minor Alan Moore. In 1993, Image Comics was still a very young company created by the “hot” artists of the time when Jim Valentino, always the most old timey alternative rebel of the Image crew, got Moore, Steve Bissette, Rick Veitch, John Totleben and a bunch of their friends to create 1963, a pastiche on the early days of Marvel comics. The Fantastic Four becomes Mystery Incorporated. Iron Man becomes the Hypernaut. Spider-Man becomes The Fury, and the Avengers become The Tomorrow Syndicate. Image’s slick and calculated characters took a backseat to Moore and company’s retro insanity. To create a whole package, even the ads and editorial pages recreate the feeling of a bygone age. For a brief period in 1993, the Marvel spirit of 1963 lived again, but this is Alan Moore, so it isn’t a complete lovefest for the work of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Don Heck and the Marvel Bullpen.

Fatale may look like the type of noir story that Brubaker and Phillips have built their artistic partnership on, but this is not a noir mystery. The horror that pervades this series, the evil of a world trying to wash over everything good and pure, is new ground for this team. Brubaker writes stories about bad men and women, but it’s rare that he writes about a rotten world. Fatale is a story of victims. There are no heroes in this series as Josephine and Nicolas fight just for their own survival. Brubaker and Phillips’ Fatale stumbles as it attempts to tell a story through multiple timelines but their story about survival and obsession shows the versatility that this team possesses to tell any kind of story.

In a future Earth populated by animal humanoids, the magic they depend on is slowly disappearing.

Through vivid, approachable art from Emi Lenox, naturalistic and cutting dialogue from Jeff Lemire, idyllic colors from Jordie Bellaire, and letters from Steve Wands, whose level of boldness matches the characters’ volume level, Plutona #1 welcomes readers into its suburbia with a pinch of superheroics world. And they’ll want to stay because there is probably a little bit of Diana, Teddy, Ray, and/or Mie in each of them.

Sean Murphy is teaming up with Rick Remender for the first time on a comic set to release on Sept. 16 called Tokyo Ghost. He is doing art he has been dying to do for some time.