Suvudu Universe

Here’s what I recommend appearing today at your local comic shop.

Operation Margarine

Katie Skelly’s Operation Margarine (AdHouse Books, $12.95) is a retro-flavored story of girls on the run. Margarine, troubled rich girl, and Bon-Bon, tough chick, take off through the desert together seeking freedom and escape. It’s like a feminist Russ Meyer movie. The flat, simple lines used by Skelly give the whole thing the feel of a fable. She talked with Tim O’Shea about making the book.

Fantagraphics’ first Uncle Scrooge collection, Walt Disney’s Uncle Scrooge: Only A Poor Old Man ($29.99) has now been reprinted and is available again. We recommend it.

Sex Criminals Volume 1

I wanted to like Family Ties (NBM, $13.99) by Eric Hobbs and Noel Tuazon, the team behind The Broadcast, but I couldn’t follow the art at key points. It’s a great concept — a version of King Lear set among a crime family in Alaska, with the aging boss father facing dementia and two ambitious daughters — but the artist’s style is so scratchy that, combined with a dark grey wash, I sometimes couldn’t tell the characters apart. (It doesn’t help that there are a bunch of interchangeable tough guys without clearly explained relationships.) When he lays off the murk, there can be panels capturing significant emotion, particularly as the boss’ son comes to cope with losing his father while he’s still alive.

Rounding out the week is the much-anticipated first collection of Sex Criminals at a bargain price (Image Comics, $9.99). Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky present a story that’s a lot more than it sounds like, although even just the concept is dynamite: a girl who discovers that time freezes for everyone but her when she orgasms finds a boy with the same ability, and together, they decide to rob a bank. Nothing goes as expected, but instead of snarky/smarmy sex comedy (although there’s some of that, too), the first issue was an insightful portrait of a young woman discovering her body and trying to figure out just how different she was in a world that didn’t support either of those. Comics rarely has meaningful portraits of significant relationships — this is one. For adults only, obviously.

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