Mike Wolfer

...and then this amazing series ended with a thud and a whimper.

Warren Ellis—he of the unending snark and unmatched imagination—had nothing to do with this closing chapter, and it shows.

Mike Wolfer, who has co-scripted with Ellis on the previous installments, and is one of the better Gravel artists, didn't do the art here, leaving it to someone who's name I can't be bothered looking up because he should remain as generic as the characters he draws. The action was actionless and stiff.

And, instead of building to an ending, it all came crashing down in the last panel.

What a wonderful series this was. What a shitty way to bow out. What a disappointment for my 150th read of the year, and my halfway point. It can only go up from here, right?… (mehr)

Stranger Kisses is the second stint of John Constanine's tougher brother, Agent Gravel. The concept is good as the first volume, but the story is rushed, open-ended and develops the personality of the main character in a displeasing way that leaves little empathy, what I think should be the key to "buy the next book". About the story, sorry, it is so compressed that it is almost impossible to review without a spoiler, so I will only tell that it is about strange sex intrigue and it is not for the light-hearted ones.

The Mike Wolfer’s art is almost amateurish, like a fanzine, but serves the books.

The Ellis' books by Avatar share a sense of constant shocking and showing graphic violence in cathartic way (for the author, not the reader) and their quality are so instable that you can't buy them blindly due to the authors name on the cover because some are good (Strange Kiss, Black Summer) and other are crap.… (mehr)