D'IsraeliRezensionen

After a mysterious events start occurring in places and vaults holding arcane and technologically advanced artifacts our venerable Witchfinder, sir Edward Grey, is called to investigate. Being in the same timeline/universe as main Hellboy story-line Witchfinder encounters creatures that are just starting to rise their ugly heads at the beginning of the XX century.

Due to this and repeating motif of secret societies and organizations working in shadows this story might seem as a repetition and constant recycling. In my opinion it is not the case, you just need to read stories at the normal pace. Binge reading the entire series will, like it is case with sword-and-sorcery and mystery novels in general when read non-stop without breaks, overwhelm the reader. And that would be a sad state of affairs because there is a lot in these booksto discover and connect the dots.

So read them slowly and with breaks between issues to truly enjoy them.

Art is good, again standard for the publisher. Approach is more comic-y than previous issue. Sir Edward Grey is more like himself (or at least he is same as he was in first issues) - more of a detective that will act and bring weapons and might into play when required. But with all of that he is not that rather dark persona fighting the underworld creatures in volume 4.

All in all recommended to all fans of mystery, horror and Hellboy universe in general.

The prolific and popular Warren Ellis, creator of Transmetropolitan, Planetary, Red, and numerous other titles, began his first ongoing series, Lazarus Churchyard, in 1991 for the short-lived Blast! magazine. In 1992, Atomeka (via Tundra) released a three-issue series quickly followed by a collection of the entire run illustrated by D'Israeli that featured the vaguely cyberpunk eponymous character. After a "plasborging" experiment replaced roughly 80 percent of his body with an intelligent, evolving plastic, Churchyard can react in 0.132 of a second to any situation and adapt accordingly. Additionally, the plastic processes toxins of all kinds, essentially granting him immortality. The tales open some 400 years after the experiment with the weary Churchyard longing to die. While at times clumsily written, Lazarus Churchyard successfully and entertainingly showcases many of Ellis's literary tropes such as transhumanist themes and biting socio-political commentary. Though much of the material covered later became commonplace, in 1992 there was nothing else quite like it.

Pithy summation of the science fiction classic, containing all the episodes I remember. The graphic novel rollicks along from Woking to London. I liked it that the narrator's burns from his brush with the heat ray remained with him until the end. My only criticism is that sometimes the Martians and their machines looked a bit too cute, with Little Green Men eyes.

A sequel mystery of the classic H.G. Wells novel, The War of the World, this graphic novel takes up what might have happened if one Martian survived and was fed human blood in exchange for knowledge of Martian technology. Exsanguinated bodies are discovered in the Thames River at low tide and a Scotsman comes to London to search for his missing daughter. Major Robert Autumn and his man, Archibald Solomon Currie take up the search to discover what is happening.

The art work is well balanced with the amount of text. The heavily accented Scots and Cockney dialogue is pretty heavy and is on occasion, undecipherable.

Good story, cliffhanger...I'll be looking for the sequel.

This sequel to Scarlet Traces is more conclusive and satisfying than the original. In this volume, the Earth-Mars war (or more accurately, the British-Martian war) reaches its climax. Two characters--a hero and a villain--from the first volume provide continuity of plot as well as setting. The protagonist in The Great Game is a woman photojournalist, who infiltrates an interplanetary military expedition in order to find out what's really happening on the Martian front. The art is consistent with the first volume, although artist d'Israeli has gone all in for CGI modeling techniques in the interim, with rewarding results for architecture, spaceship design, and so forth. Particularly in the final sections of the story, it seemed like the facial expressions of shock and horror got really extreme.

This dystopian War of the Worlds sequel has very capable writing and art. The basic premise, that England has scavenged and exploited Martian technology after the latter's failed invasion, is realized quite dramatically. It is reformatted from a webcomic, and after five chapters, the book seems to have finished a plot arc, but not a full story. There is a further volume, Scarlet Traces: The Great Game.

Het verhaal is welbekend en mager, maar in zijn tijd en die van Stijn Streuvels wellicht wel boeiend genoeg om te vermaken en enige angst aan te jagen: er zijn enkele ruimtewezens, ze maken alles kapot, ze sterven aan een verkoudheidje, en iedereen (die niet dood is) is weer gelukkig. Al bij al een nogal rechtlijnig stripscenario dus, en er lijkt mij in deze bewerking (al las ik de originele tekst (nog?) niet) dan ook niet zo heel erg veel verdienste te liggen. De, mooi uitgegeven, strip leunt dichter bij het origineel aan dan de film met Tom Cruise dat deed, maar kon me - ook al door de nogal gewone (lees: lelijke) illustraties - weinig boeien.

http://occamsrazorlibrary.blogspot.com/2009/09/hg-wells-war-of-worlds.html½

Brilliant, art is stunning, but the story doesn't quite translate into a graphic novel½

Lazarus Churchyard was Warren Ellis' first major creation. In another writer's hands, the concept of a practically-immortal man who can reshape his body at will might have ended up in superhero territory. You know it's Ellis when the hero looks like a zombie Joey Ramone and lives in the desperate underbelly of a violent future Europe.

It's good: amazingly good, when you consider how early in his career this was published. You can see the commonalities with Transmetropolitan which he started several years later: transhumanism, a strong, flawed lead, social commentary, robust female characters, wicked wit, tragedy, a fascination with the weird variations of homo sapiens, and a rage at what we do to each other.

That said, Lazarus Churchyard is its own animal, and not simply a preparation for Transmet. It feels, in fact, larger than it is; the stories are roughly continuous, but it's amazing how much it feels like outtakes from a long, established series. I don't meant that it's difficult to follow, but that there's a reality to the characters and the setting that seems to extend beyond the borders of the stories we see.½

This instalment is much better than the previous volume, and very ambitious in scale, however it still feels rushed. After a promising start, the story fails to deliver and gets resolved in a few final pages with what looks like a "deus-ex-machina" trick. The art is good, but I feel that a longer treatment would have suited the story much better; there's very little subtlety, with the bad guys explaining their plans in long dialogues like it was a Flash Gordon adventure (it's 2008, for Moore's sake!). But if you like the classics like Flash or Dan Dare, this is for you.

Wonderful graphic novel about what takes place after the Martians have invaded Earth in "War of the Worlds". This book posits the idea: "What if we went to Mars and attacked them?"

Great story and awesome illustration.

Fyrtio år har gått och kriget på Mars pågår ständigt. Samtidigt har det repressiva klimatet stärkts på jorden. Ett avgörande närmar sig och fotojournalisten Charlotte Hemming får sitt livs uppdrag. Återigen vackra målningar av D'Israeli. Krig är ett helvete, även i rymden.

My advantageous mongoose masturbates with abandon over your mother's skeleton.

Dark, angry and bizarre - also very very cool.

Meet Lazarus Churchyard, suicide-crazed unkillable junkie trapped in a future so disgusting that it makes him the good guy by default.

Marsianerna har dött och britterna har skapat ett nytt teknologiskt imperium baserat på deras teknik. De båda officerarna Robert Autumn och Archie Currie dras in i en värld av imperialistisk galenskap i deras sökande efter Curries försvunna brorsdotter. D'Israelis konst är makalös och albumet skulle fungera som ett konstverk även utan text. Vackert.