Self-Censorship in Contemporary Comic Books- Review: Sherlock Holmes VS. Harry Houdini #5

Writers: Anthony Del Col & Conor McCreery
Artist: Carlos Furuzono
Main Cover Artist: Aaron Campbell
Variant Cover Artist: Colton Worley
Publisher: Dynamite Comics
Released: 22nd April 2015


*NOTE: THIS REVIEW FEATURES MY LIST OF NEO-LIBERAL POLITICALLY EXPEDIENT COMIC BOOK HEROES AND VILLAINS


By far and away the best aspect about this entire Holmes Vs Houdini series has been the awesome front covers. The plot of the book itself stopped interesting me a while back, and in this final issue it has devolved into some daft, but at least highly contemporary anti-Russian fear propaganda.

Variant cover by Colton Worley

Don’t get upset, don’t start chucking the dreaded ‘conspiracy’ label at me either, because I’m not saying that this book is some kind of devious US government funded anti-Russian operation. It isn’t. It’s a book written by a bloke who needed a convenient villain, and the easy villain at the moment is Russia, so that’s where he has gone with the story.

What do I mean by ‘convenient’ villain? I mean that if you use a Russian villain in your book nobody is going to get upset about it. Heck, nobody will even mention it, well except for blokes like me on my blog.

I won’t go on too much about contemporary geo-political events, but Russia is starting to be demonised and given their cold war era ‘enemy of freedom’ status in the mainstream media once again in 2015. What is portrayed in the corporate mainstream media (as they are the great arbitrators of reality, right?) often trickles down into other forms of popular media as well, such as WWE wrestling, and comic books. So if the evil Russians are the villains on the (fake) news, why not use them as the fake bad guys in comic books as well?

If Russia is the convenient or expedient villain in 2015 who are the people/countries that comic book writers will not use as villains? Interesting question, don’t you think? People might not like to hear this, but in the western world at the moment we are living in the times of neo-liberal political correctness. You can criticise some people, but if you criticise others then it’s CAREER OVER.

Here are the main groupings (in my opinion, and based on my reading of hundreds of comic books over the past decade) of people who you are NOT allowed to criticise.

Non whites. (If there is a tint in their skin, don’t go there)
Homosexuals.
Immigrants (Any criticism of mass immigration will lead to accusations of racism).
Muslims.
Jews.
Feminists.
Social justice warrior campaigners.
The armed forces.
The Police.
China.
Saudi Arabia (and all of the other Gulf dictatorships supported by the west).
Israel.
Democratically elected (selected, in reality) Governments.

I’ve missed a few, obviously, but I think that’s a pretty good starting list. If you are not allowed to criticise any of the above groups of people, who are the groups of people that you are allowed, or even encouraged to criticise in our politically correct neo-liberal times?

The following list is the neo-liberal politically correct go to people that you ARE allowed to use as villains in 2015 comic books. Again, this list is based on my own experiences of reading comic books over the past decade.

White men.
Gun owners.
Survivalists/Preppers.
Southern Americans (always portrayed as redneck racists).
Nazi’s.
North Koreans.
Dictators (Not those supported by the west obviously)
Russians.
Homophobes.
Racists.
Misogynists.
Christians.
Aliens.
Truthers (The 9/11 truth people and anybody who questions government/media lies).

There are rare exceptions, when individuals in one of the two groups are shown to be heroic or villainous, but when this happens that person is not held as a representative of the group as a whole. You’ll get a crooked cop, but there’s always a good cop to defeat him and make sure that the organisation as a whole is not denigrated. You’ll get a nice Christian, but most Christians are still presented as crazy cult followers, and if you are looking for an evil Muslim or a crazy feminist character (they do exist in reality you know) then contemporary neo-liberal comic books are not going to be for you.

So looking at my two little lists, put yourself in the role of a comic book writer. You need a villain, so who is it going to be? You can’t use real life villains such as Islamic terrorists, or murderous cops, so what do you do instead? Easy, you pick a Russian or a Nazi, or a racist white man, or a Christian cult leader, or an alien and you make the story about personalities and exciting plot twists. You avoid the real issues of our times, and steer clear of all of the controversies that will get you in trouble with the neo-liberal politically correct thought Police that will call you bigoted or racist if you dare to go up against them.

Sherlock Holmes VS. Harry Hoodini uses a Russian villain, good old faithful mad monk Rasputin, and creates a safe scenario where the US (represented by Houdini) and the UK (represented by Holmes) team up to beat the evil red threat. You can do that, you are allowed to do that, nobody will mind, and you’ll have comic book fans putting up reviews that talk about the art, the plot and how exciting it all was, or whether or not it all made sense, or surprised, or entertained them.

To me it was just another comic. It messed up a bit after the second issue, and played a bit loose with the detective formula, but from that point on it kind of cruised to the end. The villain lost, his motive was hate, nothing deeper than that, don’t think too much about it, as it’s not important. All you need to know is that it was a fun ride and the heroes won, end of story, or is it?

I didn’t hate the book, but it wasn’t really doing anything. It’s not going to linger long in my memory, but nobody was offended, the covers looked great, and I’m sure that Holmes and Houdini will return. The characters are cheap, available, easy and safe and they have name value that is guaranteed to gain you at least a little bit of interest. I don’t blame Dynamite Comics for using them. If I wanted to sell a few hundred comic books then I’d probably do the same thing myself.

I’ll finish off this review with a quick message to writers Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery.

I wasn’t that impressed with the content of the book, but no hard feelings lads. I enjoyed the covers, and they are going to look great on my bedroom wall. Best of luck with all future projects, but go on, take a chance. Say something that you are not allowed to say. Be brave. It will be fun.



Rating: 6/10 (Lots of action and last second surprises and twists in this final issue, but the story didn’t say anything, other than to remind readers that it’s still politically expedient to have Russian villains in contemporary comic books)



 Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my list. Did I miss any group out? Who do you think you are allowed to criticise, and who do you think that you are not allowed to criticise in contemporary comic books?

Comic review: Sherlock Holmes Vs. Harry Houdini #3- Great cover, borderline unreadable book.

Writers: Anthony Del Col & Conor McCreery
Artist: Carlos Furuzono
Cover artist: Aaron Campbell
Publisher: Dynamite Comics
Released: 14th January 2015

****SPOILERS IN REVIEW****

As soon as I finish up this review I’m going to scour the Internet for the opinion of other reviewers. There must be somebody out there that likes this comic book, but to me it reads like a baffling, haphazard, sprawling, headache inducing, confusing mess.

I want to clarify that statement, and make it crystal clear that my confusion has nothing to do with the narrative itself. I understand exactly what is going on. I have re-read the book twice over, and even gone back to issue #2 to clarify a few points in my mind, so I know exactly what is happening. My confusion is based on the construction of the story and what it is trying to do to the poor reader.

If it’s trying to baffle, trying to confound, trying to annoy the reader, then it’s a huge success. This is dense, dense stuff. It doesn’t help that the two lead characters are drawn so similarly either. Was that Holmes speaking, or was it Houdini? I kept getting them mixed up as they are almost identical in appearance. The final panel illustrates this problem perfectly, with the two leads sharing the panel, looking like twins, and ending the book with the same sense of conclusion that it opened with. Was that Houdini on the hypnotist’s couch? Let me check again.

Nope, it was Holmes.

And the plot itself, underneath all of the dense layers of obsuration it’s maddeningly nonsensical and utterly unlike any detective story that I’ve ever read.

Issue #2 concluding by revealing the identity of the villain. It also revealed his motivations, and exactly how he was carrying out his machinations. You don’t do this in a detective story, and if you do then you better have a pretty bloody good reason for doing so.

Issue #3 of Sherlock Holmes vs. Houdini looks at the villain’s accomplice/boss, at the bloke in the shadows who was helping him out. This bloke turns out to be ****SPOILER ALERT***** Rasputin the mad monk. Yeah, that guy….again. So why the early reveal? I don’t see any good reason here, as the reveal isn’t a narrative misdirection, designed to thrill the reader, it’s just that the main villain wasn’t the dull old guy after all, rather he was Rasputin instead. So what? Why exactly am I supposed to care about this?

So Rasputin is messing with Holmes and Houdini with his special magical powers, and when confronted by Holmes the great detective doesn’t even care to ‘wait for the reveal.’ Rather than chatting it over with the beardy weirdo he chooses instead to physically attack Rasputin. When does that ever happen in a Holmes story? The answer to that question is, never. It never happens because Sherlock Holmes is a brain, a puzzle solver, not a fist first, explanation later kind of guy, as he is portrayed in this book. The only thing that would interest Holmes at all about this case would be the motive of the villain, so to have him refusing an explanation is utterly baffling to me.

I tell you what, thinking about this again, I know exactly how Holmes feels. If I was in his shoes then I don’t think I’d care much about the reveal either. The reason why I don’t care is because the writer hasn’t given me any reason to care. There’s no mystery here, just an explanation of motive. That isn’t a detective story, and it’s barely a story at all.

I’m a huge fan of the original Sherlock Holmes stories, but this interpretation of Holmes portrays him as somebody that I find impossible to have any empathy for, and Harry Houdini is just as unpleasant, arrogant, petty and self centred as well. Why create a comic book where your titular characters are egotistical braggarts who readers are going to have a difficult time identifying with? That’s a baffling decision, and I can’t understand why it was made.

Why should anybody care that two arrogant sods are being messed with? I don’t like either character in this book, and all the story has to offer now is to reveal why Rasputin was messing with them, and whether or not he has any genuine supernatural powers. That’s not enough to keep the story interesting. I need more than that to keep on reading.

This issue ends with Rasputin doing what Rasputin always does in stories such as this ***SPOILER ALERT AGAIN**** he dies, then comes back to life again. Am I supposed to care about him now? Why should I care? I don’t understand why I should care.

Oh, and I see in the preview for issue #4 that Houdini supposedly got arrested in this book. Err, what? Did I miss that? Nope, I didn’t. What was missing was the panel that actually showed him getting arrested. That panel never existed. Goddamn it, this review is starting to make my head hurt now.

This book has been such a slog to get through, such bloody hard work, not a lot of fun, and I can’t find any valid reason to care about any of it.

I need some positives here, as all of this negativity is starting to weigh me down. There is one good thing about the book, that being the exceptional front cover art by Aaron Campbell. Look at that cover again at the top of this review. Isn’t that beautiful? Mr Campbell has done a great job on that one.

Oh man, here we go again with more depressing negativity, but I have to be truthful here. That amazing front cover art is in a different league to the artwork within the actual book, and the drowning scene that is featured on that cover never even happens in the story anyway. There is a tank of water in the book, but there’s no girl in it, so I don’t know what happened there. It’s like the cover art is from another, much better book than this one. That cover is great, but the interior stuff is not very impressive at all.

I can’t keep buying this book because of the cover, no matter how good it is. I need something more than that for my money, and the story and art within just isn’t cutting it for me, so off I go.

Now to read those other reviews. I’m sure that somebody out there has given this book a good rating (there always seems to be somebody on the Internet who will give a top mark to a bad book) and I can’t wait to see how he talks this one up.

Rating: 2/10 (for that lovely front cover)

Comic review: Sherlock Holmes Vs. Harry Houdini #2: Breaking from the tried and tested formula

Writers: Anthony Del Col & Conor McCreery
Artist: Carlos Furuzono
Publisher: Dynamite Comics
Released: 12th November 2014


***Warning!! Plot spoiler in review***

The majority of this book is taken up with action/buddy movie panels of Houdini and Holmes trying to outdo each other, only to fall into inevitable mutual respect. You know how that routine works right? We’ve seen it so, so many times before. It’s not original, it’s a formula, but it’s okay, it’s kind of fun.

The rest of the book is a murder mystery tale with a final reveal that probably gives away a bit too much of the plot, leaving you with the unsatisfying feeling that you have already solved the mystery before the great detective.

Mystery/detective books aren’t supposed to work like that. You are supposed to hook the reader by dragging out the reveal until the end of the book. That's how it works, that's how it always works.

But not here.

The very obvious enjoyment to be had in reading what can loosely be described as the ‘murder mystery’ genre is to try to guess who did it, with the writer dropping clues throughout, but with these clues only making sense come the final reveal.

That’s exactly what happens in every single Sherlock Holmes story written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and that's what makes them so much fun to read. Holmes is the great detective, so naturally it is (usually) him who delivers the final denouement at the conclusion to the mystery narrative, but can you uncover the mystery before he reveals it? That's the hook that keeps you reading, that keeps you on the look-out for the clue that will unlock the puzzle, and that's why it is so enjoyable.

Why writers Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery are breaking from this formula so early on in the story (it’s only issue #2) is the biggest mystery of the book so far.

Hopefully there’s something else going on in this story, because if this is just a plot about a wronged rival trying to cause Houdini some irreparable career problems then, well, that isn’t exactly a lot of fun, is it? Plus we know Houdini’s real-life story already, and his career went pretty well throughout his entire life.

What we are left with is a buddy movie, in comic book form. That’s okay, but I need something a bit more than that in my comic books.  I’ll give this book one more issue, see if it offers anything else, but if it doesn't then I’ll have to give it up. The art is only average, and although I like the alternative covers that isn’t enough reason for me to hang on until the end of the story. I ain’t rich you know, and I have a growing chocolate and fragrance addiction that needs feeding. Keep the reveal to the end. Giving it to us already in issue #2 is a very strange thing to do, hopefully it makes sense in issue #3, but at the moment I don't understand that decision at all.

Rating: 5/10

Sherlock Holmes vs. Harry Houdini #1

Writers: Anthony Del Col & Conor McCreery
Artist: Carlos Furuzono
Publisher: Dynamite Comics
Released: 1st October 2014


Sherlock Holmes and Harry Houdini have a lot in common. Yes, I know that one of them is fictional, but the two characters in a literary sense occupy a very similar landscape. When you visualise the two personalities you get Victorian era London, spiritualism, fake mediums, daring escapes and the unravelling of mysteries.

Sherlock Holmes didn’t have much time for the supernatural. He thought it all a load of old bunk, a trick designed to part the gullible with their money. Harry Houdini was a well known, outspoken critic of the spiritual fakers and charlatans of his time, publicly denouncing them as frauds. He never claimed to be supernatural, like a lot of stage magicians of his time. He kept his secrets, but he didn’t claim to escape his chains because of magical powers. He did physical tricks, and he did them very well, and with a lot of showmanship.

Therefore the teaming up of Sherlock Holmes and Harry Houdini seems completely logical, as their attitudes towards the supernatural are pretty much identical. The problem however, was how do you write a ‘versus’ story when the two characters would essentially agree with each other?

Writers Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery aren’t pulling a fast one here by having a versus title, and then doing the opposite in the book. I admire that honesty. The book opens with the two personalities engaging in a versus battle, with Holmes declaring that he can deduce how Houdini performs all of his famous escapes.

Houdini takes him up on the challenge, and this book follows the two larger than life personalities as they engage in a public battle of one-upmanship live on a London stage. The book closes with a third party taking the role of the villain of the piece, a villain that will force the two personalities to team up and explore the possibility that certain elements of the paranormal are dangerously real, and not just the smoke and mirrors con trick that they had both previously assumed it to be.

This book is a lot of fun, and that’s exactly what you want from a title with two huge personalities like Sherlock Holmes and Harry Houdini. Houdini is written as a sceptical, big headed guy with a more down to earth wife who helps him to stay grounded. Holmes is written as a sceptical, big headed guy with Doctor Watson helping him to stay grounded. The two personalities are almost identical, so when they meet there is a fantastic dynamic going on with them trying to best each other.

The dialogue flows very well and the two characters are portrayed both on, and off stage, giving the reader a satisfying contrast between their public and private personas. This simple script technique is very reader friendly, making you feel like you are getting the real inside story on two extremely interesting personalities.

The only problem I had with the book was that Holmes himself is pencilled as a square jawed, beefy American movie star type, rather than as the hawked nosed, rake thin scholar that I usually associate with the character. That’s a minor snipe though, as the art is perfectly fine, with some lovely usage of shading and shadow, and with a nice use of dark backgrounds to create a spooky atmosphere for the book.

Sherlock Holmes vs. Harry Houdini #1 is a very well written book with two fascinating characters coming together to create a special a piece of comic book magic. It’s very well paced, starting off with a public confrontation between Holmes and Houdini; it then further develops the two characters, before concluding with a dramatic scene involving the villain of the piece. You'll love this book. It really is a lot of fun. The title might seem a bit daft, but it’s a very entertaining, well-structured comic book about two personalities that have a lot more in common than I had previously realised.

Rating: 9/10