Comics Review: Red Sonja, Blackbird, Matt Baker

Like the magazines, I’d randomly bought these.  The first two were purchased at Zia Comics, likely just to be nice.  The last one was a real find at Coas.

Savage Red Sonja #2

I’d given Issue #1 of this series a glowing review at the beginning of the year (1-3-24).   What a mistake.  It was all crap in the next issue.  I’d actually sought this out on the stands at Zia Comics.  I’d liked the stylized, kind of minimal artwork before, but that was with a better story.  Here, the art carried the whole comic and it didn’t work.  I don’t know if there wasn’t enough story for two issues or there was supposed to be more and it was cutoff or it was rush job.  There’s just no point in buying individual issues of new comics anymore.   

 

The only art I'm posting from this are a couple of house ads.

Blackbird #1 The Great Beast

This comic was not written for me.  It’s more like a young adult female magical girl series, probably a pitch for a show.  And I liked it.  This might say more about me than the comic book.  However, in my defense, the artwork in this is bright and attractive, the characters have some depth, and there is a decent story.  I kept waiting for something dumb or irritating to happen in the story to make me regret buying this, but it never happened.  This is a mother/daughters/sisters story, not an Agenda-driven tale. 

 

This trade is an introduction to the main characters and the setting.  I’d actually like to read more and see where the story is going.  (After a quick look, I don't see any more of this series available.)

 

The Lost Art of Matt Baker Vol. 1 Canteen Kate

This is why I keep going to Coas Bookstore.  Some of the stuff I’ve found there has been amazing.  I was already familiar with the “good girl” artwork of Matt Baker from the 40’s and 50’s.  When I saw his name on a hardback, I snapped it up.  I had no idea something like this even existed.

 

This is actually mostly because Baker’s work is in Public Domain, which is where I’d read some of it on an online archive.  I don’t know if this is Baker’s best work (that would probably be Phantom Lady), but he clearly had a lot of fun with it.  The stories are funny as Kate continually gets herself and her cohorts into trouble.  These were originally published in a violent military comic, so I question how the comedy fit in with that.        

 

My main complaint is unfortunately the image quality.  The reproduced pages are slightly larger than original.  These are scans from the original comics and not the original artwork.  There was some touching up of the scans, but the color choices were questionable in places.  So you’re getting the stories and a crude reproduction of the artwork.  You’re not getting some archival quality artbook. 

 

I don’t know if I’d recommend this.  I paid $25 (used) for material I could get for free online with about the same quality.  Still, this is a really cool artifact to own, since I’m a fan of Matt Baker’s artwork.  I’d certainly like more in book form.