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25th April 2024

DG Stewart

DG Stewart is the editor of WCBR and is a content contributor. He completed a Bachelor of Arts majoring in literature at the University of Western Australia in 1989, and is an Adjunct Professor at Murdoch University in Australia.

Shake the Lake #1 (Review)

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Shake the Lake #1
North Air Entertainment and Elevated
Writer: Zach Block

“Dude, I know you need college money but you gotta unwind. No goals. I’ve got it under control. Always do. I need to hear you say that.”

“Shake the Lake” #1 is an enigma. On the face of it this is a coming of age story based in Lake Shasta in California, whereby a group of male friends in their late teens spend all of their spare time wake boarding and partying. The crew bounce on trampolines indoors with wakeboards strapped to their feet and thereby break the ceiling fan in their rental house. They drink to excess and make monumental beer can pyramids. “There’s a naked man in a tubie and a spray painted goat in the front yard!” yells Akbar the landlord as he evicts his youthful tenants. It is the essence of the college frat house motion picture “National Lampoon’s Animal House”, but set in 2016 instead of 1962.

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The Root of All Evil: The Black Monday Murders #1-2 (review)

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The Black Monday Murders #1-2 (review)
Image Comics, September/ October 2016
Writer: Jonathan Hickman

If this title disturbs, it is because one of the most talented writers in American comic book industry, Jonathan Hickman, does a spectacular job of convincing the reader that he has kicked away at the topsoil of the falsehood of capitalism, humanity’s real and dirty habitat. Underneath lies a mouldy and parasitic truth to economics vastly terrible, and despite the black mystical elements of the story somehow it makes the world make perfect sense.

The methods by which the global capital markets work are a mystery to most. The idea of making money by moving money from one asset type to another by way of investment seems straightforward enough. But terms such as arbitrage, Libor, derivatives, hedge funds, short selling and, famously, sub-prime could just as easily be a foreign language to most people. The language itself does not mystify. The concepts themselves are alien.

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Russians in Comic Books

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As tensions between the West and Russia have dramatically increased in the past year, so too has the characterisation of Russia in Western comic books.

As we discuss below, most of Western comics’ attention this century has been directed towards the menace of the Soviet Union and its state-sponsored spread of communism as an ideology and a system of government antithetical to Western democracy and capitalism. But in the past five years, particularly, there is a new orientation towards perceptions of Russia in comic books.

In addition, we also take a quick look at the contemporary Russian comic book industry, and its penchant for copying American concepts.

1. Vladimir Putin and Post-Soviet Russia

A brief rundown of the geopolitical sequence of events leading to where we are now is worthwhile:

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Harland Buck: Freesword #1 (Review)

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Harland Buck: Freesword #1
Weldon Studio
Writer: Scott Weldon

After the fall of the Roman Empire, kingdoms rose and fell into obscurity. Waves of armies and their retinues – some nomadic and some seeking better prospects – settled into the niches left by the Romans. One of these, the Kingdom of the Rock, near Clydebank immediately west of modern day Glasgow, though once extensive and powerful is barely remembered today even by locals, and allusions to its existence can only be gleaned by careful consideration of contemporary records.

The writer of “Harlan Buck, Freesword”, Scott Weldon, creates for his readership the entirely believable world of the Kingdom of Alo’vyn and its colonies in Emeraein, both lands with vaguely Celtic names but in unspecified places which could easily have existed but been lost in the mists of time and the shifting of civilisations. The protagonist, Harland Buck, is a “freesword” – an independent mercenary. Buck’s face is scarred and he is a fearsome melee fighter. His dour exterior hides empathy: in circumstance where he could save himself from the elements, Buck is by his actions quietly determined to save the life of a bleeding and badly injured young soldier, a Realmguard who has taken to the king’s service in exchange for land to farm.

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