REVIEW: Fana, the Jungle Girl #1

All contents: Butch Burcham
Review: Will Dubbeld

Curse you, siren call of the Jungle Girl stock character...
Here I am again, staring down the barrel of another musty independent comic from yesteryear featuring a scantily-clad woman on the cover.
I'm not sure what to blame. My own R. Crumb-esque frantic fingernail-biting over Jungle Girls stems from some deep psychological neurosis, though. Perhaps it was Jane from the old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan pictures I watched as a youngster. Maybe it was still photography of Betty Page in a leopard print bikini. Might've been Shanna the She-Devil.
Anyway, here I am, greedily gobbling up another selection from the discount bin:
Butch Burcham's Fana the Jungle Girl no. 1.

We don't waste too much time on backstory or exposition in Fana, instead leaping almost immediately into sweaty Jungle Action.  The book is divided into 2 short stories separated by some pinups of our titular heroine sitting coquettishly or stretching languidly about some jungle backdrop.        

REVIEW: Rogue #1

Story: Howard Mackie
Art: Mike Wieringo and Terry Austin
Colors: Dana Moreshead and Mike Thomas
Review: Art Bee

For the longest time X-Men and Fantastic Four were my comics of choice. They offered a much younger me so much: hope, creativity, morals, and (most of all) escape. It pains me to see what the modern execs at Marvel have done to these creations. Fortunately the teams I grew up with still exist in the pages of comic books to be relived over and over. Each member of the X-Men has a unique and elaborate background and they are brought together by two factors, Charles Xavier and the mutant X gene.

In January, 1995 many X-Men fans rejoiced as Rogue #1 graced comic book shelves. This comic is a must-read for every X-Men fan. Issue #1 brings the reader up close and personal with the character Anna Marie, a.k.a. Rogue. The book does an amazing job unifying three core elements of Rogue in this story.

The first element is Rogue’s background. The past is the greatest villain Anna Marie ever faces. When her powers manifested, she put her boyfriend at the time, Cody Robbins, into a coma. Meanwhile, she lives her life with the memories and consciousness of Cody every day. Once a year she travels to visit him in his coma. This is very important to her character. She is not just plagued by her own conscience, but the conscience of every victim of her power.        

REVIEW: Stone, the Awakening #1 - 4

Words: Brian Haberlin
Pencils: Whilce Portacio
Inks: Gerry Alanguilan
Colors: Dan Kemp
Review: Art Bee

Stone, the Awakening was first published in 1998 through Avalon Studios (a branch of Image Comics) as a mini-series to introduce the main character, mythos, and story before the launch of the main ongoing series. This story was created by Haberlin and Portacio, but the namesake of the main character was Gerry Alanguilan, a.k.a. Komikero, who has done extensive work all over comicdom. His work is known to me, but I never made the connection to this series, which has been living a happy life in one of my comic boxes for almost two decades.
It’s almost like finding buried treasure . . . sort of.

This story is based on a multiverse theory consisting of an infinite number of realities. Stone introduces the idea of magical stones called Agimats, existing in a finite number (50), able to bridge between the various realities and grant the bearer unique abilities. The bearers of the Agimats battle one another to gain honor and control of more stones. The creators have done an exquisite job of fleshing out and layering the storyline of this series. In actuality this entire story seems to picture schizophrenia.    

REVIEW: Kabuki: Circle of Blood #4

Writer/Artist/Creator: David Mack
Review: Will Dubbeld

Kabuki was always a bit of a mystery to me. I'd known about it for years but had seen nought aside from ethereal, watercolor advertising. Mack's work was familiar to me, having seen his splendid art in Daredevil, but his creator-owned Kabuki was a mystery. There was almost a Dave McKean-like quality to the book's art and that prompted me to seek out Kabuki.

NOT a common book in my neck of the woods, however. As fortune had it, I did manage to luck into 3 random issues in the good ol' dollar box at the LCS.

Expecting a collage of form and color, I instead discovered the first Kabuki series was a traditionally rendered black & white indie book. Not what I expected, but by no means disappointing. The pencils and inks are sharp in these pages, offering a crisp and detailed story with some good uses of negative space.  Mack offers some extremely clever nuances of symbolism and you certainly can see touches of where his future art was headed.