ATLAS (SHRUGS): part two: It's Grim, and not just Up North

Full disclosure: one of the three co-publishers of the new Atlas line, also its letterer and designer, is an old friend of mine. Not a ‘round each other’s houses’ friend, but certainly a ‘stop when we see each other and catch up on life’ friend.

Which doesn’t mean his books are getting an easy ride. Or a hard one. I have my integrity.

I’ll give them this; Atlas have spent a few quid on these new books. Not exactly Fillet Steak and Cristal money, but certainly a bit more than Double Cheeseburger Value Meal money. There’s nice heavy covers on the outsides and nice glossy paper on the insides. And there are recognisable creative names in the credits. Again, not Morrison or Johns or the other heavy hitters of today, but men who have a steady body of work behind them. The Editor-In-Chief is Mike Grell, for pete’s sake.

So how have they done?

Not all that well, to be honest.

I mean, a round of applause to them for even attempting to launch an entire new line in these straightened times when even the major publishers have trouble keeping a single new title alive for more than six months. Unfortunately, the quality of the new Atlas books isn’t of a high enough level to keep readers on board. That’s a depressing thing to have to say, but it’s how things are in the modern market, a market where below-par books (and more than a few above-par books) disappear quicker than an unwary stroller across Morecambe Bay.

Let's start with:

The Grim Ghost 1:  I’ll admit I had no idea who Stephen Susco is, but a quick Google told me he’s a scriptwriter who wrote the Grudge films which starred Sarah Michelle Gellar. Tony Isabella wrote the original Grim Ghost series, so between them they should be able to turn out a half-decent comicbook. And yes, this is the best of the three launch titles as far as writing goes; the premise isn’t a radical re-tooling of the original but instead adds to it in order to update. We have a POV character – Michael - who enables the handy first-person captions which in turn enable enormous amounts of exposition to be put across without the requirement of a character standing there spouting it and slowing things down.

Unfortunately, Michael’s captions come over as lifeless (which may for all I know be a deliberate choice, given that the character is dead) and over-expository. There’s no idea that he’s in any way involved in the events; given that he’s new to the ‘being dead’ game you’d expect him to be more skittish, more gobsmacked at what goes on. Instead, he just drones on about what Matthew (the eponymous Ghost) said and what Matthew did and wow Matthew's just soooo great, with the additions of a little bit of whining about himself and a brief interlude with an old man which just sits there, taking up a page. Maybe it’ll be important later in the story. Certainly doesn’t seem to be now.

Speech is pretty much old-style comicbook dialogue (“My name is Matthew Dunsinane and I hate to break it to you… but you’re dead!” Damn, does that mean I’m going to miss next week’s Glee? “Can you believe it, Amy? A baby girl! We’re parents!” Does she not know this? Was she comatose during the entire pregnancy and labour? Or are you just incredibly patronising - more so than I am?).

The biggest question is: What the hell happened to Kelley Jones? His art style has always been a little unusual, with its exaggerated drapery and dramatic compositions, and let’s not forget that Jones was the man who put yard-long ears on Batman’s mask and gave us the Amazing Anorexic Deadman. But here, it seems that any quirks have been knocked out of the art - presumably by a heavy-handed art director -  and if it’s the case that the house style is considered to carry more weight than individual style, why give the job to someone with such a distinct look to their work?

It’s still recognisably Jones’ art, all dark shadows and off-kilter figurework, though it looks dangerously as if it was knocked out overnight or reworked heavily by an art department. Every female figure in the book seems to have been pasted in after being drawn by an entirely different – and entirely inferior – artist. This is especially jarring on a double-page spread towards the front of the book, where the female figure stands out by virtue of being the only brightly-coloured thing on the page, which emphasises the stylistic dichotomy.

I don’t want to damn this book out of hand. It has possibilities, especially in the Fringe, its not-Heaven, not-Hell setting, reflecting the real world in both physicality and in how its residents interact with others. There’s a good idea in there, and it’d be nice to see it built upon.

This is the real world, though, where Grim Ghost gets the same chance of making an impression as every other book hitting the shelves, and on this showing that chance has been wasted.

But it does have a very nice cover logo.



Next: Phoenix. Or Wulf.