This is one curious graphic novel. Perhaps a compilation of the essential stories detailing the everyman-turned-headbutting-mechanical maniac, Real Mean is a typical 2000 AD Mega-City excursion into one of the more obscure though perhaps genuine characters in the Dredd-verse. And if anything, this book is all about character development…or not. It’s hard not to choose the correct option (presented in You Are the Mean Machine) that involves some variation of the sound effect “BOK” and a good amount of head flinging based on Mean’s thought procession. Nay, this could be a higher meditation on the plight of the underprivileged common man of the science-wrought future, his metaphorical chains being only his anger unraveling within. But probably not; Mean Machine is an antithesis of Dredd, with poor grammar.

 It’s not as if Mean’s demeanor is wishing-well deep, for he is not a ponderous creature. When asked a question or faced with an unfamiliar situation his typical fallback response is either the ominous “izzat so?” or the click of his forehead dial “straight to 4″, set to vicious. It matters not, as both lead to his signature head-butt, preferably “down to a greasy spot” if given the opportunity. And don’t let his overcompensating mechanical claw (apart from his missing, nubby left limb) distract you; his head plate is the thing, and his aim is true.

And that’s basically it. Nothing other than mayhem accompanies him, whether his fault or not. Ever pursued by the judges, Mean propels through the pages in all locales both temporal and physical. In the ubiquitous back alley, stolen and bullet-riddled transport vehicle (windowless, of course) or even the odd time machine, to impersonating nuns in the local hospital’s surgery unit, Mean is nothing more than a whirlwind of gristled nastiness best avoided on its blind trajectory elsewhere. Whether exacting revenge, fatherly frustration, even the bliss of unexpected matrimony or just a good “buttin”, readers are given significant pause of his weird state of samadhi.

What makes this compilation intriguing is the detailed art accompanying the sparse, often breakneck pacing inevitably ending in loose teeth and oozy puddles. Apart from the longer, more colorful entries scripted by John Wagner and drawn by Richard Dolan, the ones written by Gordon Rennie, especially The Geek, are just as (if not more) brilliant. One part dumb bludgery, another comic satire, and a third tragic noir, Real Mean makes a bizarre and provoking (thoughtfully or otherwise) reading experience indeed.

It’s impressive to read how these seemingly disparate installments appearing in various 2000AD progs are feathered together to form this bittersweet ballad. Indeed, as this collection is universally hailed as classic space opera, the slow momentum from which it begins seems anything but.  It starts with an all too common motif, the boredom and need for wanderlust in and for a distant future when even space itself has not only been conquered but hotly contested.  Swiftly though, it changes to something more complicated, as life is wont.

Refreshingly, this is not a superhero story. It’s hard science fiction, cosmically emblazoned within the sharpened panels characteristic of 2000AD’s art and galaxy building. It’s not necessarily speculative on our future (other than our cetacean friends reclaiming Earth upon our folly) but on the human condition, that specifically after another few millennia or so, human nature (the best and worst, of course), still won’t change much. Written with subtle strength from the female vantage, as so many top sci-fi stories have been, Halo Jones is ultimately, believably not super, but heroic nevertheless.

But with all Moore’s clever plotting and the roguish, keen sketching from Ian Gibson, this is the story of no one, or perhaps anyone who at the seductive scent of adventure, is brave enough to claim their own future, accepting the good and not-so-good outcomes with each step.

Kaku smartly concentrates his dissection of human scientific endeavor in three stages for the common person in this century: the near future, mid century, and the far future (until 2100). Methodically moving from our reliance upon and discarding of the now obsolete desktop/laptop computer to our eventual mastery of artificial intelligence and robotic fabrication, microchipping and nanotechnology, to the unlocking of unlimited new energy sources, Kaku plainly (though with plenty of detail) sings the silent tsunami of our scientific evolution, providing unlimited possibilities of our survival and potential.

Of particular interest and importance is his foreshadowing of our fulfillment of Moore’s Law, predicting the eventual scrapheap of the modern computer as we know it, in favor of the exponential micro-advances already in development today, such as smart lensing and the microchipping of nearly everything we will use to augment and enhance our sense of reality. In our quest to make everything convenient, our robots will aid in every aspect of our lives, whether fully integrated within our bodies or swarming interstellar space as nano-probes, searching for and designing our future modes of habitability. Our current, feeble attempts at harnessing green energy will eventually lead to better and smaller fusion reactors even magnetic transportation, promising the ability to fly and hover at will.

Alas, all is not rosy within our microchipped HUD lenses. Humanity will inevitably be confronted with hard decisions and sacrifice in paving this future. In addition to the obvious implications of our advances in medicine, the issues of human evolution and robotics resound heavily in his book. Is it inevitable that humans will integrate themselves, even their consciousness, into more mechanical beings? Will there be singularity of consciousness in which our machines think better than we do, rather than just compute? Is this a natural evolution for us?

Whatever the answer, Kaku can’t be blamed for continually disclaiming that the future is indeed in our hands, and that we have the ability to prevent all sorts of silly Skynet scenarios from becoming reality. The real tragedy Kaku hints, is within our own limitations, our fears and dependence upon archaic governance structures that preserve and protect their own interests rather than those they purportedly represent. Despite our ever-exponentially advancing scientific and technological progress, Kaku states, Humanity will continually grasp toward the stars while still having their feet firmly planted in the mud. Whether that is a good thing is yet to be determined, but it too, is reality. If anything, reading the final chapter “a day in the life in 2100″ offers an excellent summary of the beautifully chaotic control we may very soon possess. Physics of the Future is an excellent speculation of science-fact, nicely serving as reference upon the futurist’s and inquisitive’s bookshelf.

In this ongoing meditation of Norse ethos in its rapidly evolving culture, Wood deliberates upon the idea of survival. Whether choosing life based upon the reliance and strength of the old gods or two champions’ quick-witted and closed-in strategy in a duel, or the tenuous safety of a broken fortress against an outnumbering onslaught, to the sacrifice of family for reputation, Wood focuses not as much on Norse savagery but on the fortitude to avoid being swallowed by it. There are very few heroes in these stories, leaving the reader to come away with a sense that in this day and age, familial survival was glory enough.

All four stories in this volume are brilliantly complemented with cohesively flawless art from numerous contributors. The writing is sparse, set against the stoic, ever-present eeriness of the northern lights, glowing upon and enhancing the madness emanating beneath the iron of the warriors’ blades and armor. Two stories are prominent in terms of their gripping starkness, the first being The Viking Art of Single Combat. Never have I read a more absorbing fusion of text and sketching, terse with violent paneling though coupled with a softened, detached narration about two Berserkers vying for their respective lords’ perennial, bloody and ultimately trivial skirmishes.

The Shield Maidens is the second standout. In an attempt to renounce the proverb “fate is relentless”, three Danish women combine wits in an abandoned castle to resist a pillaging Saxon horde, with only the tide providing temporary refuge. It’s an excellent story underscoring the subtle strength of the female experience in Norse society. Daniel Zezelj’s artwork is especially gorgeous, his rigid lines permeated by swaths of blunt color, a blending of sky and sea in the season where the sun never completely sets.

This third volume of Northlanders is a disturbingly brilliant compilation of the old Norse experience. Its strength rests in deft storytelling of the other members of this society apart from the storied warriors. Chillingly (in every sense) it highlights the difficulty of life in this age, how victory was attained not always in battle, but also in its clever sidestepping. An excellent installment in this harrowing series.

I was snared instantly. Dark and smoky in ambiance, it’s a fine aspiration of the 1923 NYC (it works, don’t question it) cobblestone and the accompanying shades of a dimming late October evening. There’s good texture to the art…swaths of shadows blending into tinted greens, blues and yellows sickly illuminating an ominous air of mystery and old-timey soot and grime.

As established as the atmosphere and sketching may be, the story and characters, while not underdeveloped, definitely show potential. Apart from the series namesake, Mr. Frank is a pleasant standout, humorously demure while providing the investigative muscle of the operation. Igor, handling the business side, is predictably crotchety and aloof. Again, room to grow from such a brief initial peep.

In sum, this maiden offering of Igor is a droll glimpse into what could be a creepily catchy and adventurous romp somewhere nestled among Skullkickers or Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse fame. Definitely a new comic to watch.

eBooks totally ignores everything you say. We in libraries have not been included at the table for negotiations on digital copyright, terms of service, licensing conditions, technology integration, none of it. And yes, that stinks. And yes, we’ve complained about it enough. We haven’t been heard largely because we’ve been too polite and too quiet for too long. It’s our fault. We removed ourselves from the equation by not being more proactive as a profession through the professional organizations and lobbyists we expect to speak for us. But even now that some of us are getting louder and angrier, we’re still being ignored by the entire eBooks industry, with very few exceptions (hi Gluejar, you guys rock). So my opinion is that we should walk away and take our fuck-me heels with us. That’s what our moms would tell us to do.

eBooks drew you in with wine and roses, but now makes you fetch him beer and Cheetos
Remember how tantalizing eBooks seemed several years ago? How sexy, how intoxicating? Everything seemed perfect because we were caught up in the glossy image of our desires…not the reality standing in front of us. eBooks…in…the…library! Holy ceiling cat!!!11one! We were like kids on our first trip to the candy store.

Now, eBooks’ idea of a date is ordering a cheese pizza from the cardboard pizza joint down the street. Maybe he’ll turn on some bromance comedy on Netflix, but more than likely he’ll play Skyrim by himself for hours, ask for a beer, and tell you to get lost. For your birthday eBooks might actually put toppings on the pizza (think Penguin’s misguided experiment at NYPL with embargoed popular titles) and buy a bottle of $5 wine. And he expects you to be grateful…after all, hey…toppings! For libraries, our crappy pizza is our crappy eBooks selection. We can’t buy from most of the major publishers, and even for those we can buy from we have extreme restrictions or highly inflated costs. And our attention negligent boyfriend’s actions, in eBooks’ case, are the lack of development of usable download processes, fair-use-friendly terms of use, and privacy options in keeping with libraries’ professional values and ethics. In short–dude…the dates are terrible and yet we keep going on them, hoping that maybe we’ll go somewhere nice eventually. Please, darling. We know better.

Too much good stuff (and more importantly accurate stuff) to quote. It’s the hard truth, or should I say the flaccid truth.

Where Transmet excels in propelling humanity’s collective neuroses in a bubbling, angst and drug-fueled supernova against our impending future failures of corruption and over-consumption, Graham shrugs, writing a softer, more rounded-edged comic. King City is quite a finely balanced, smoothened world-building of urban locale and inhabitants over the importance of story itself (as Graham will honestly explain). At first glance it’s a future candyland of youthful crime syndicates, secret sasquatches, and homages to Street Fighter and Dumb Donald of Fat Albert lore. But what’s more interesting is the subtle social commentary: Graham introduces a future that belongs solely to youth; where at least in this city, no one above age forty is to be found anywhere. Where technology is based more on moving organic parts, not necessarily gears. A city where the economy is based on the exchange of goods and information between a myriad of local weirdo coteries.

Perhaps Graham’s work is an echo of the gen-x slacker ethos represented through no better avatar than the cat. Joe is his main protagonist, Catmaster extraordinaire, just a regular guy though always within arm-length of his bucket of cat-in-waiting death vortex. When not casually “paint bawlin” or couch-slouching with friend Pete observing the latest ninja swarm, the duo is performing their next score for an unknown employer, paw-picking locks, or slinking through every inch of King City unseen.  Yes bad dudes are afoot (the menacing Eye Focus cadre is well depicted), but Graham’s preponderance upon the cat is a fascinating juxtaposition against a future feline domination of say of Paolo Bacigalupi.  Not necessarily gods, but furry receptacles of menace and utilitarian potential, cats symbolize for Graham a yin-yang of slack-action, “slacktion” if you will, a perfect balance of pacific naptime and frenzied claws to the face. Wielded in the right hands, the cat-and-master hybrid is a fascinating conception of domestication redefined.

In addition to Graham’s compulsion to deftly drop pop-culture wordplay (pun times, man) in nearly every panel, King City is a setting where Joe (and even Pete – whose side-quest is just as noble) can choose sit out the current apocalypse to lend a hand to help a friend. There will always be another one to fight, as Graham places heavy emphasis on small acts of decency that are too easy to dismiss amid a festering saucepan of urban future-crazy.  This compiled edition is excellent as it contains bonus stories and supplemental material as Graham provides needed background on his Catmaster history (Mudd is an intriguing and too underwritten character in my opinion), as well as stellar guest contributions.  Amid a gonzo future-culture critique, King City is a surprisingly insightful and deep comic collection.

A proponent of the world’s “second oldest profession”, there’s no doubt of Tyson’s feverish talent for presenting astoundingly wondrous insights of the universe. This work isn’t as focused on that as it outlines the astoundingly small-but-giant steps we’ve achieved in the infancy of our space exploration, and the current factors decelerating the improbable momentum gained from such achievements as the Apollo and Hubble endeavors. Of the many points of emphasis, a select few are consistently repeated: that our focus on war and defense has historically been the trigger for space exploration, coupled with China’s surplus of scientifically literate citizenry (more than the entire population of the United States), and the invisible, unheralded contributions of NASA (not only for space exploration but humanity’s welfare) on mere fractions of the US tax dollar. These are but a few hindrances to consider when faced with the more looming obstacles such as preventing the inevitable asteroid collision, commoditization of the fledgling aerospace industry, and providing more interesting reasons for gravitating students toward science, like designing anti-matter propulsion or theorizing light-speed travel rather than incrementally increasing our fuel efficiency for outdated systems.

Aside from lacking a more thorough bibliography of sources cited (apart from a grand set of space budget appendices), the only detractor to the book is that it can seem more an anthology than the entreaty it is. Tyson will in one instance expound upon his concern of the emergent cultural embrace of anti-intellectualism, while in another ponder the feminist implications of the traditionally phallus-shaped propulsion rockets, no better represented by the exalted Saturn V.  But the occasional disparate topic highlights Tyson’s theme of the necessity of cross-pollination among his audience in the interest of solidarity in scientific inquiry; the more disparate entities and peoples that can be tied together for a common purpose, the more likely we are to generate lasting interest in exploration and science itself, beyond even the realms of space.

Space Chronicles is a gentle though unsubtle reassurance of the popular meme that although we as a species have accomplished much, we are really not that special. If we see ourselves as otherwise in this unfathomably large universe and thus are lazy enough to abandon exploration beyond earth and take scientific inquiry for granted (as we are), humans are destined to ensure our own extinction. While preaching to the choir for space enthusiasts, Space Chronicles is a good primer for the space curious.

Read the first several chapters and one will think The Nightly News is a rather linear treatise, a thought piece born of intense frustration pondering the implications of justifying domestic terrorism against the information elites in power. It is that to a degree, a clever hook to readers triggering an emotional response to an issue in which seemingly everyone nowadays feels strongly. It is the story of John Guyton, of his recruitment and supposed deprogramming within the Brotherhood of the Voice. Consisting mainly of society’s disaffected and marginalized, the Brotherhood militantly undertakes action against what they perceive as the constant propaganda by the mainstream, corporate news industry as well as its enveloped commercial and political influences. The machinations between a disgruntled society, professional journalists and the governing elite all make for a superficially explosive amalgam. But things aren’t what they seem, and the story complicates with a deeper exposition outlining the more sinister manipulation between all said influences. In between such manipulation is a slew of calculated bloodshed, domestic terrorism that many would think hitherto improbable (but nevertheless not impossible).

Where Hickman excels is in his direct candor to the reader. From the outset, he peppers his panels with separate factoids regarding the corporate media, undoubtedly stoking the readers’ emotional involvement in the story. His artistry is unique: from a graphic design standpoint, his preponderance of red and the aching sharpness of straightened, multitudes of lines infuses the story with a buzzing though beguiling boxed simplicity; sharp are the contours but the content, the people contained within are cold, faceless. Additionally, he provides numerous personal and perhaps curdling, cynical annotations, tempered upon the reader with his citations, a quasi-objectivity nowhere more evident than a double-edged disclaimer in the subtitle: “A Lie Told in Six Parts”. It is not lost upon reader that avoiding the fine print in this story would be as dangerous as doing so when reading the newspaper or listening to a newscast. His portrayal of the cult, or rather the members’ adherence to desperation and infatuation with knowledge-power is both cathartic as it is depressing; that such empowered and self-aware characters can also predictably, blindly accept an unseen, orchestrated fate they feel is wholly of their own making is Hickman’s most important and unsettling complexity.

For all of the sharpness Hickman brings to The Nightly News, it is not without its occasional flaw. As blatant and meticulous as he is with infusing references in the work, the one major issue is the potential confusion between his anecdotes and the sources cited. While admirably giving credit to his sources, they are not enumerated, thereby becoming enmeshed with his anecdotes (both at the end of the work), potentially spoiling the ending for the reader. Nevertheless, some of Hickman’s most important points are located within his anecdotes. His passionate either-or arguments between “head or heart”, “doubt and faith” are not overstated. Rather, it is an intense plea upon the reader not to choose either, but to realize why they are forced to accept such a choice at all. In all, the Nightly News is a violent, daring and important work, an unpleasant though necessary artistic jolt, with a resonance extending far beyond the comics community.

Like any of his works, we are fortunate to have Tale of Sand. This newly unearthed manuscript developed with collaborator Jerry Juhl could have been easily lost in the production company archives and remained undiscovered or simply disregarded. Thankfully it wasn’t, as it is quintessential Henson, and perfectly adapted for a graphic novel. I’ll say no more than it tells the story of Mac, an everyman who inexplicably finds himself in the American southwest, unusually equipped and on-the-run through a series of surreality and improbable adventure. Henson provides little detail as to the motive of his chase or the background of supporting characters, but these details are ultimately unimportant. Like many great tales, this one is about Mac and his journey rather than the destination or circumstances. As such with Henson’s unique vision, his characters are designed to personally identify with the reader, and particularly so in Tale of Sand. Whether it be strange, frightening, or even humorous, there is always another door to walk through, some new wonder to behold.

That this screenplay, rejected by numerous film studios, has been adapted for a graphic novel can only be fortuitous. It is a most natural medium for the story, told through the lens of Ramón Pérez whose artwork provides a stunning southwestern ambience; his inspired, bold sketches are aglow with blistering, white-hot desert-scapes contrasted against an ever present golden-hued horizon, somewhere in time of the early twentieth century. Pérez excels in his paneling, for as frantic as Mac’s journey is, so is the reader’s journey across the page. The layout often reverts between extended linear, entwining and blending of panels, wherein the reader can become deliberately lost in the progression of the page. Calm desert scenes with nothing more than observant iguanas give way to raucous chase, heavy-duty explosions and action sequences involving Ray Nitschke and Bedouin sultans of all things, requiring the reader to give careful pause before moving on. Perfect sequencing to realize Henson’s imaginative and joyous sense of the bizarre. The only issue I see is whether Perez’s oversized visualization will be effectively adapted for digital readers within a standard screen to fully accommodate the entirety of the page.

A brief imaginary excursion, Tale of Sand is perfect for those just becoming acquainted with Jim Henson’s passion for storytelling. At the same time, the tale is a fitting, bittersweet farewell, his genius of creativity on full display.