Howard ChaykinRezensionen

Erekose, Eternal Champion incarnation that actually remembers all other incarnations and their ups and downs, wakes up as a lord protector of the Land of the Marches, land between Hell and Heaven. His role is to keep the balance and prevent either side from attacking the other. Of course tensions are high when he enters the scene and he must find the solution to the problem.

And so he will find himself fighting at the most unsuspecting place of all and finding strange allies that will bring him one step closer to finding his way to his true/eternal love by providing him a passage through weil separating the multi-worlds. There he will come across the mysterious ship that just might be sailing in the right direction.

What I like in these books is that Erekose is champion of balance - order and chaos are both dangerous in their extreme and champions are there to strike and keep the balance between the two. But in doing that champions are constantly sacrificing parts of themselves and question remains how long can they keep up doing what they do.

Art is beautiful, both drawings and coloring, artist manages to bring to life the very other-worldliness of these fantastic lands, battles against creatures of Heaven and Hell are just magnificent.

Recommended to all fans of heroic SF/Fantasy cross-overs, especially those that like Barsoom [and of course to fans of Moorcock's works :)]

This is a short story about the clever, under the radar hit-man. Working through various contacts that obtain the contracts our protagonist will execute one kill too many and turn his whole life to literal ashes.

It is a standard revenge story. But unlike usual revenge stories it feels somehow unfinished. I don't know if the authors planned for additional releases or story-arcs but while start of the book is standard action movie entry sequence to better flesh out our protagonist middle and last third part seem very much rushed. Twist and reason why hit-man found himself on the wrong end of the gun is easy to understand but resolution happens so quickly that it makes no sense (like meeting with the only FBI agent that is aware of true identity of our protagonist but has no evidence to actually arrest him - I mean why contact her in a way he did it). Also some events and objects were put into this story just to validate further direction of the story (for example fat from liposuction - I know, right :) - with the whole purpose to prove our hit-man is dead - totally weird).

Entire book feels like a pilot episode - too bad they did not work on it more and developed it more thoroughly.

Art is blocky, very 80/90s but not without its charm.

So not a bad read, but nothing to memorable.

Volume #10 begins with Belit and Conan going back to Belit's home city in order to get potion to save her mentor N'yaga. This will set them on the road to Stygia where they will get involved in the inner politics of this sorcerer-kingdom with epic battles and monster encounters as a result.

All in all good collection, although stories are more comic(y?) here than in previous issues. Again lots of over dramatic postures, teeth barring and bombast dialog - everything that marked the action comics of the time. In any case it did not prove to be too much disconcerting to me thanks to the page organisation and composition.

Art is again great, Buscema's art again being more to my liking than the rest. Even with all the drama and bombast Buscema manges to give Conan story that epic feeling that somehow eluded the other authors of the period. H. Chaykin is also good but again not as good as Buscema (at least for me).
Coloring is not so good in the first few chapters (it is somewhat grainy) but gets back to quality of previous volumes 1/3 into the book.

Excellent volume, highly recommended to Conan and sword-and-sorcery genre fans in general.

My review of this book can be found on my YouTube Vlog at:

https://youtu.be/gCsDjyN3oqU

Enjoy!

Great Elseworlds sorry, though a bit dated

An interesting though dated story from Chaykin with excellent art by Mckone. Worth a read for this two issue series.

Great Elseworlds story, though dated

An interesting though dated story from Chaykin with excellent art by Mckone. Worth a read for this two issue series.

I bought all of these comics when they came out originally. As a kid I lived for every new Star Wars story. Rereading them made me chuckle. Their was no canon at the time and the Marvel writers just went hog wild. If you have a problem with Jar Jar you are going to love Jax. This was the only way to get extra Star Wars while you waited for the movie. They sold incredibly well at the time.

Some of the stories are great but others don't hold up well. I would have given them a 5 as a kid now they are more like a 3.5. A great walk down memory lane.

This book only appears to be all about smut. I mean, there is some smut in there, don't get me wrong. But that's not all that's in there. The characters are well-rounded, and the period detail is great. I love Chaykin's art, and Fraction's writing style is well-suited to this kind of book. If you don't mind the (ahem) graphic nature of the adult relationships depicted, I recommend this book.

614

1495

So. Boring. Couldn't even care enough to finish reading it.

Signed. 249 of 666

Good fantasy graphic novel. I read some of these stories many years ago.

Not really my kind of book. Thought with the big names associated with it, it would have a stronger plot.

Totally friggin horrid!

Got this for $3 during my vacation in Philly. Read this is one day because I love a shit show of a series and this was a fun shit show. I loved the twists and turns in this supernatural thriller. Loved Risa, she was probably my favorite character. I probably won't read the second volume though, it'll be hard to find at a store.

Howard Chaykin writes and illustrates a roman à clef graphic novel of the comic book industry from the 1940s to 2015 with a Mad Men gloss, telling truths, tall tales and urban legends about lightly disguised figures like Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, and more. There's corporate malfeasance and personal foibles galore -- so much infidelity! -- as well all the racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and sexism one would expect of the times involved.

I've enjoyed Chaykin's work in the past, but this one just sort of bored and occasionally lost me as it repeatedly jumped through back and forth through many decades in short, choppy scenes with its large, mostly unlikable or barely sketched cast. It didn't help that I had already heard most of the stories and gossip through my many years of reading about the comic book industry.

There's a second volume available in this series, but the only reason I might read it is to play a game of picking out all the real people and characters Chaykin is satirizing. I'm on the fence right now.

I found the artwork in this book to be very confusing. It was very hard to tell the difference between most of the male characters, and while the black and white style gave an excellent noir feeling to the artwork, it really didn't help. The style of the word bubbles added to the confusion, I felt it often wasn't clear who was speaking at any given point in time, and bubbles appeared to be connected across panels at times when it was not appropriate.

I also didn't really understand the motivations of any of the characters until after I read the bios that were grouped at the end of the book, which originally were released with each individual issue of the comic. In a letter at the end of the book Fraction wrote that someone reading the story in a condensed format rather than monthly shouldn't need the bios to accompany each issue, but I felt like the writing and story were so nebulous that it would have been helpful. It wouldn't have made a difference aesthetically or in terms of page number, so I'm not really sure what the reasoning was there. I didn't fully understand what had happened in the book until after I read them.

The premise is excellent and interesting enough that I almost want to keep reading, but I just don't think I could slog my way through another volume. Just not a book for me.

Artwork: 3
Story: 3

Dark, perverted, twisted, kinky, bizarre... but poorly written.

This would make a great B-movie sexploitation horror flick, like terrific, but it just doesn't have the mileage in this format. It was disjointed, confusing and hackneyed. The characters were paint-by-numbers cliches, although the plot reveal was surprising (I had no background knowledge of the story whatsoever). This is early Chaykin so I have hope for the rest of his work.

Well, this is a first. A DNF on a Howard Chaykin comic.

While the art is fun and well done, as Chaykin usually turns in, the story was far far too wordy (in a "As you know, Bob..." way), the plot far too convoluted, and way too many players. And while I'm sure, down the line, there was probably some minor payoff with the constant KNN newscast chatter in the background, all it really seems to do is draw the reader away from the action and muddy the waters (and it's really boring to read, as well). Finally, and rather surprisingly for Chaykin, even the actual panel layouts weren't well thought out and often hard to determine what dialogue came next.

Just not fun whatsoever. I gave up 70-odd pages in.

Five stars for the art, one star for the story, averages out to a 3.

Easily some of Chaykin's best art. Slightly less sketchy and frenetic than he's done lately, and really enjoyable. Reminded me of why I love this guy's art so much.

But the story. Ugh. Unnecessarily complicated, too many interchangeable characters, far too fast a pace that simply didn't allow the story to breathe, especially when the central piece is regarding two characters who first antagonize each other, then learn to work together...the shift between those two states literally took a page.

Nowhere near his finest work from a writing standpoint.

I love Howard Chaykin, even with all his faults, but this one? Yeah, this is just a big ol bucket of nope for me. Virtually nothing worked.

The plot is far too complicated, and therefore unbelievable. Tucker's real-life (meatware, breeder, whatever) double-crossing girlfriend is brought in, then forgotten. The nanotech is brought in, and promptly forgotten. The damn robots all love each other. Robots have boyfriends and girlfriends. The robots have adopted a Dirty Thirties dress code.

Add that to the typical Chaykin faults: All the women are well-endowed and attractive and horny as hell. And, no matter how tough they are, they always need saving at one point or another by the dark-haired alpha male.

The art is quite good, considering the terrible story it supports, but this is, unfortunately, a steaming pile right from the get-go.

I'm going to start out by saying I freaking LOVE Howard Chaykin. It's literally the only reason I picked this up.

Having said that, yes, there are issues. No, I don't know what's going on with everyone's eyebrows. And I can't quite figure out why suddenly Chaykin draws every single male with a lantern jaw. He never used to. Finally, yes, evil occult Nazis.

So, yes, this story is not without its flaws. But.

But, if the reader can get past those issues, then this is actually a rather fun story. Nick Fury is fun. Dominic Fortune is as wisecracking as ever. Sabretooth is an asshole, but an enjoyable one. Namora pushes the royalty angle a bit much, but still.

Overall, I had fun. And I usually do with a Chaykin book, so I left satisfied.

I've always held a soft spot for Dominic Fortune. I loved Chaykin's art on his adventures, as well as his action-packed stories and witty dialogue.

And Chaykin's always better when he's not constrained by the mass market soft pedalling. The first story in this collection is proof of that. A great story. The second one is a very generic, bland thing that just sits on the page with no snap. It's not Chaykin, and that's obvious. The rest tick along nicely, and the last one is obviously the mass-market colour comics, because it's mostly de-fanged.

But all in all, a good collection.

I love how this is billed as The Complete Howard Chaykin Classic!.

Uh...no.

When I think of some of Chaykin's classic work, I think American Flagg or his work on The Shadow or Black Kiss. If you ask me, his best work was on a blink-and-you-missed-it single issue Monark Starsalker and his work on Dominic Fortune, both for Marvel.

In fact, this single issue collection of Ironwolf tales sort of seems like an embryonic version of Starstalker, which would come along about three-ish years later.

Chaykin came a long way in a short while, but this is actually somewhat painful to read. The art is before he came into his own style and looks a lot like Starlin (though not as clean) at this point. And while he can be blamed for the rough art and plotting, the blame falls squarely on Denny O'Neil for the horrifyingly overwritten purple prose. It's staggeringly awful.

For all of that though, as others have said, there are the first faint sprouts of ideas he would later build into much better written and drawn stories. It's sort of like finding a bit of early archaeology that would point to modern man.

UPDATE: I don't think I've ever had this happen previously, but I literally had no memory of reading this collection previously (which shows what little impact it had on me), nor did I even remember writing the review 2 1/2 years ago.

Bizarre.

But, yeah, I still stand by my original words. Though I'm surprised 2016-me gave this three stars. Two is all it deserves. Two different damsels in distress? One who's the leader of the resistance, but is Ironwolf's second-in-command? Come on!