Tag Archives: The World of Edena

Some stuff I’ve read recently…

Because of several big time recent sales, I’ve picked up a number of graphic novels via Amazon/Comixology and am working my way through them.

Some thoughts/brief reviews:

Moebius Library: The World of Edena by [Moebius]

Jean Girard, aka Moebius, was a French artist whose artwork, IMHO, is absolutely stunning.  Through his life/career, he worked on many genres, including westerns, but is primarily known for his science fiction.  The World of Edena presents the complete saga of Stel and Atan, two spaceship “mechanics” who wind up experiencing a very strange series of adventures indeed.

The saga began as a small story featuring our mechanic protagonists and was followed by another story which was a contracted promotion for the car company Citroen before expanding into a larger and larger saga involving these at first sexless characters returning to their humanity, their awakening sexuality (including, sadly, an attempted rape, a sequence that might have worked back when this was originally released but today is… well… difficult to take), their breakup, and, eventually, the corrupted society they face and must defeat.

I was familiar with the early chapters in the book but as I went along found myself reading “new” material, including the last few chapters and conclusion to this saga. As it turned out, it was the second half of the series where I felt Mr. Moebius’ writing failed him and the way the saga ends was, IMHO, particularly disappointing.

What isn’t disappointing is the artwork, which is simply stellar.  Even when his story goes off the rails, and I do believe it did somewhere around that half-way point, one can’t help but admire Moebius’ artistic skills.

Highly recommended for fans of Moebius’ artwork but don’t expect the story to grab you as strongly.

Image result for prison ship esteban maroto

It feels like I’m about to offer the very same essential review of the Doug Jones written, Esteban Maroto Prison Ship as I’ve just written for Moebius’ The World of Edena.

In Prison Ship our protagonist Faye (this is her name in this compilation), is flying a group of criminals from one planet to another when her spacecraft is apparently hit by a meteorite. She is knocked unconscious and, when she awakens, finds her prisoners, who were in some kind of cryogenic units, have escaped.

Faye’s spacecraft is locked in place and programming within it will not allow her to return home until she collects the escaped prisoners, alive or dead.

The concept, as presented, is intriguing but the story, alas, is pretty nonsensical.  For example, the big crisis for Faye is the fact that she cannot use her spaceship to return home until these prisoners are captured, and one gets the sense she’s on an island and will be unable to move until this mission is accomplished.  Yet she gets into a smaller shuttle craft and goes from planet to planet without any particular difficulties.

Faye is also a rather typical Heavy Metal/1984 type female protagonist: Sexy and sexual yet not terribly deep beyond that.  Yes, you will find her presented in various states of undress while as the story progresses, we come to a whopper involving the identity of one of the escaped prisoners which was beyond silly.

However…

That artwork is terrific.  Yeah, the story doesn’t hold up but in this case, Prison Ship is worth picking up for that alone.

Image result for shadow fire of creation

I’m a fan of The Shadow’s original pulp novels.  The character, and those novels, were very clearly influential in the creation of The Batman.  Over the years, many artists and writers have taken on The Shadow with varying degrees of success.  To me, the most successful works are still those by Dennis O’Neil and Mike Kaluta.

The Shadow: The Fires of Creation is written by Garth Ennis and illustrated by Aaron Campbell and the overall product doesn’t quite reach the levels of O’Neil/Kaluta and ultimately falls somewhere in the middle.

Lamont Cranston aka The Shadow and his right hand woman Margo Lane are on the hunt for two Japanese nationals who are, in turn, seeking out “magic rocks” and will kill anyone that stands in their way.

Again, a decent read and certainly not a bust, but there have been better Shadow graphic works.

*****

More to follow!