Battlefields (2010) #2

Ennis continues with the mellow. This story arc continues to be calm and genial. It’s nice–the new captain flirts with the barmaid, the command decides to let the socially graceless Masher continue with his behaviors unhindered (he farts when he gets excited).

I still don’t know how to talk about the issue because so little of conversation-worthy note occurs. It’s just a good comic. Crew has a mission get rained out, they go drinking, they have another mission, they suffer some friendly fire, they make it home all right thanks to the captain. Obviously, if the captain’s doing something amazing each issue to save them, the implication is next issue he’ll fail.

Again, I’m a little at a loss for words. The writing is strong–Ennis reins in the humor a lot (he can go wild with these types)–and the art’s excellent.

It’s not dramatic just lovely.

Battlefields 3 (February 2010)

Well, Ennis gets to the rough stuff here. But he still handles it calmly and affably for the beginning, then once the event occurs, it’s rather touching. To this point, Battlefields has been pretty extraordinary and different, whether in plot details or characters. This arc is the first one where Ennis just sits down and tells a traditional war story–not too traditional, of course, the dead guy didn’t have a girlfriend to cry over him.

It’s a very sure piece of writing. Ennis always seems sure of himself, but this arc is a little different. There’s no hook. There’s nothing different about it to get a reader’s interest. It feels very comfortable and not in a bad way. Makes me wish Battlefields was a monthly.

However, something’s off with Holden this issue. His faces are too broad, which hurts during the two talking heads scenes.

Still, a great comic.

CREDITS

Happy Valley, Part Three: Who’ll Come on Ops in a Wimpy with Me?; writer, Garth Ennis; artist, Paul J. Holden; colorist, Tony Aviña; letterer, Simon Bowland; editor, Joseph Rybandt; publisher, Dynamite Entertainment.

Battlefields 2 (January 2010)

Again, I’m a little at a loss for words. The writing is strong–Ennis reins in the humor a lot (he can go wild with these types)–and the art’s excellent.

It’s not dramatic just lovely.

CREDITS

Happy Valley, Part Two: In Pomgolia; writer, Garth Ennis; artist, Paul J. Holden; colorist, Tony Aviña; letterer, Simon Bowland; editor, Joseph Rybandt; publisher, Dynamite Entertainment.

Battlefields (2010) #1

Ennis is off to a fine start with the second round of Battlefields, this time covering Australian fliers during World War II. All Battlefields are WWII, aren’t they?

Anyway, it’s a fine start, with some nice humor at the end. It’s a pretty straightforward story, which might be why he’s opening with it–a solid war story.

In fact, it’s so straightforward, so solid, I’m really not sure where it’s going. There’s nothing revolutionary to it so far. It’s about a rookie pilot joining an experienced bomber crew. Ennis narrates the story through the pilot’s letters back home to his father, which maybe foreshadows of some tragedy… but it’s too soon to tell.

It’s maybe the most “enjoyable” Battlefields issue, as there’s no real dread yet. I’m sure there will be.

Hogan’s art isn’t realist, it’s emotive–maybe comic strip influenced. I’ll bet it looks wondrous in black and white.

Battlefields 1 (January 2010)

Ennis is off to a fine start with the second round of Battlefields, this time covering Australian fliers during World War II. All Battlefields are WWII, aren’t they?

Anyway, it’s a fine start, with some nice humor at the end. It’s a pretty straightforward story, which might be why he’s opening with it–a solid war story.

It’s maybe the most “enjoyable” Battlefields issue, as there’s no real dread yet. I’m sure there will be.

Hogan’s art isn’t realist, it’s emotive–maybe comic strip influenced. I’ll bet it looks wondrous in black and white.

CREDITS

Happy Valley, Part One: From a Land Down Under; writer, Garth Ennis; artist, Paul J. Holden; colorist, Tony Aviña; letterer, Simon Bowland; editor, Joseph Rybandt; publisher, Dynamite Entertainment.

Battlefields: The Tankies 3 (July 2009)

The final issue of Tankies is even better than I remembered and maybe even imagined. I’m really glad I forgot the ending–Ennis gives it two finishes, one for the tank company, one for the colonel at command–and it’s just perfect. What the colonel’s ending does is a little different–Tankies is not just a standalone story, it’s Ennis’s story about the men in tank companies….

But packaging it in Tankies, with the humor, with the fourteen-hour present action for three issues, Ennis never gets sentimental (there’s no dedication, for example). Instead, he simply presents the situation of the tank companies and goes with it.

I haven’t mentioned Ennis’s use of Geordie for the corporal. I usually loathe the use of dialect in writing because it’s usually used for all the wrong reasons. Ennis uses it for all the right ones.

Tankies is an amazing piece of work.

CREDITS

To the Green Fields Beyond; writer, Garth Ennis; penciller, Carlos Ezquerra; inker, Hector Ezquerra; colorist, Tony Avina; letterer, Simon Bowland; editor, Joseph Rybrandt; publisher, Dynamite Entertainment.

Battlefields: The Tankies 2 (May 2009)

Oh, it’s lovely.

Ennis has something of a narrative tree going here–he has his main story with the tankies, but then he’s got command’s story. Command’s story has a little to do with the tankies, but not much. It has it’s own subplot. I think maybe half the issue has nothing to do, immediately, with the story of the tank company.

So, instead, there’s the large picture of the situation and then this one tank moving through it, with Ennis moving back and forth.

Tank stories–the ones I’ve read or the films I’ve seen–are intimate, because it’s just a handful of guys in a tank. Ennis maintains that intimacy–sometimes for relieving humorous effect–while still having this wider picture. I’m not sure it’s important we remember anyone’s name, since they’re so memorable for appearance or behavior.

It’s Battlefields‘s most traditional war story so far–a so.

CREDITS

Yeomen of England; writer, Garth Ennis; penciller, Carlos Ezquerra; inker, Hector Ezquerra; colorist, Tony Avina; letterer, Simon Bowland; editor, Joseph Rybrandt; publisher, Dynamite Entertainment.

CREDITS

Battlefields: The Tankies 1 (April 2009)

I’ve always claimed The Tankies as Ennis’s best of the Battlefields (first series, anyway). I didn’t really remember why.

Then I read the first issue again.

Ennis sets up the story as a mission story. Maybe not even a mission, maybe just a part of a mission story. The present action is continuous. He opens the comic with a page of text explaining the situation to the reader. The white text on black alone foreshadows dread.

However, Ezquerra’s art is funny. His character expressions–and Ennis is dealing with British stereotypes for the most part, so there are lots of them–are simply hilarious. But all those funny expressions are in a terrible situation.

Ennis doesn’t bother with a cliffhanger. Instead, the protagonists find out about what’s been going on in the rest of the issue, concurrent to their experience.

It’s somehow both a small story and an enormous one.

CREDITS

Sugar Daddies; writer, Garth Ennis; penciller, Carlos Ezquerra; inker, Hector Ezquerra; colorist, Tony Avina; letterer, Simon Bowland; editor, Joseph Rybrandt; publisher, Dynamite Entertainment.

Battlefields: Dear Billy 3 (March 2009)

It’s a tad… Victorian, isn’t it?

I mean, it’s an excellent issue and a decent close to Dear Billy, but it’s just too confined.

With the whole letter to Billy thing–Ennis either has to use it as a letter to the guy or a narrative device. So he uses it as a narrative device. A delivery system for the story, which it’s not properly equipped to do. It’s a letter, it’s meant to be read.

The letter doesn’t open this issue and maybe it needed to be present again, from the start. Ennis’s spends the first two issues expanding the world of the protagonist–but not in the third issue. He constricts. Worse, he shifts a lot of the storytelling attention to Billy, away of Carrie.

It’s a very serious story and Ennis takes it seriously. But in being respectful, I think it got a little loose from him.

CREDITS

Writer, Garth Ennis; artist, Peter Snejbjerg; colorist, Rob Steen; letterer, Simon Bowland; editor, Joseph Rybrandt; publisher, Dynamite Entertainment.

Battlefields: Dear Billy 2 (February 2009)

I can’t remember how Dear Billy ends. Even reading another issue, I can’t remember. I spent a while, in the back of my head, anticipating Ennis’s cliffhanger. Three issue limited, he’d have to cliffhang… but he doesn’t.

In fact, for a comic featuring a nurse killing three–wait, four–Japanese POWs, the most sensational thing in the comic is the two gay American intelligence guys. It’s a very strange scene, practically a domestic scene between the protagonist, Carrie, and her beau, the titular Billy, out with some friends.

Even when Carrie figures out a way to meet up with Billy on the front, it’s nowhere near as sensational as those two gay Americans. Girl on the front for a night of romance is unlikely, but gay American spies during World War II… it’s really not done. I don’t even think it’s done for soldiers in the Iraq War II (yet).

CREDITS

Writer, Garth Ennis; artist, Peter Snejbjerg; colorist, Rob Steen; letterer, Simon Bowland; editor, Joseph Rybrandt; publisher, Dynamite Entertainment.