It's the Blue Moon Special(s)!

 Remember how I just posted about some comics from independent publisher "Blue Moon Comics?"

Yeah, get used to that.

Last time, I wrote about "Diversions," BMCG's flagship anthology series. This time around I'm going on about three of their "Special Editions."

I ordered these in print from Indyplanet.com, as I have with all of these Editions. They often include colored versions of stories already featured in Diversions or elsewhere, and if I have the B&W version, I figure the main reason to buy them again is to have the "enhanced" version in its physical form.

There are other additions to these editions (heh), of course; text pieces, pinups, and other original content, depending. 

Up first, however, is Blue Moon's first-ever double-sized crossover "Event" special:

In this first meeting between Blue Moon's debut superhero (Night Spider) and their own grim spectral avenger (Midnight Stranger), the two protagonist's find themselves at odds over their individual morals and methods when it comes to fighting crime and stopping evil.

The Spider aims to bring the bad guys to justice. The Stranger prefers to send them straight into the grave.

The story is set up and played out well, with street-level crime combining with a supernatural threat in order to give both heroes a place in the unfolding struggle.  The 48 pages go by quickly, but not so much so that things feel padded. 

As for the art, JW Erwin is one of the better artists working on the indie scene these days. His figure work is impeccable, his spage designs are creative, and his sense for action is dynamic.

His allergy to drawing backgrounds, however, is pretty noticeable. It always has been, in my exposure to his work, and the fact that this issue is in color does help to alleviate the sense of "floating in emptiness" that many of his panels can convey in B&W.

I don't mean to be overly critical, here, but it is a "thing" in this issue, especially on pages 2 and three, where even Lloyd Smith's coloring can't keep things from feeling a bit too sparse.

That being said, this isn't as prominent elsewhere in the issue, and is largely obfuscated by action and color-work throughout. As I said, Erwin IS one of the best who's doing it these days, but everyone has their "quirks," eh?

In no way did any of that ruin my enjoyment of this issue. It was fun, entertaining, and the art is, quirks aside, head and shoulders above most other "truly indie" work out there.

Two "Fact Sheet" profiles of the protagonists wrap up the affair, which is a very cool and welcome touch.

Next up, we have:

 

This issue features stories all written by the legendary Steve Skeates. There is a nice tribute piece by Robert Flood that you can read when you open the cover, and an extensive interview with Mr. Skeates by Mark F Davis (remember him?) that is spaced out between the three stories before wrapping up on the inside of the back cover.

Speaking of the three stories, they are semi-self contained sagas, but they also follow each other directly, with a subplot that develops a brand new archenemy for our submarine superhero.

Ken Johnston's art is simple but effective in the first 5-pager, but the second panel on page 4 features no less than EIGHT thought balloons running down the length of it. I guess that page limit has its price, eh?

"Madness Beyond" follows up on the opener nicely, with some more polished art by Ron Stewart, and the story benefits from an extra page being allotted to its length. I guess I COULD level some of the same "lack of backgrounds" animus at this art, but the underwater setting lets Stewart use "swirls, bubbles, and currents" to keep things from actually looking/feeling "empty," so I won't. 

Depthon (our hero) develops a new power in this story, too, an event that surprises (and kind of disturbs!) even him. It's a nice touch, adding a new element to the tale even as it continues the previous one.

Speaking of new elements, this is the chapter where we meet our new bad guy: WHO IS NEVER NAMED, as far as I can tell. 

Still, it's a fun and engaging six pages that not only contains all of that action, but also a peek into our hero's origins, too boot. Good stuff.

Another story, and another page is added to the closer, which is called "Eels on a Ship!" A "Snakes on a Plane" reference? Well, hey, not everything is timeless.

The art in this 7-pager is the best in the issue, and perhaps the best in the three issues we're looking at this time around. Brad Olrich is the creator of "Commodore Dinosaur," a new title that's coming out from Blue Moon, and his work here is just straight up stunning.

In fact, the opening panel of the tale is a master class on how to USE empty space to illustrate a scene, and especially how to convey a sense of "lighting" in a B&W image.  Buy the book and check it out!

As the story goes on, Depthon discovers yet another new power, thinks back more on his past (and what he doesn't know of it), and we revisit our still sadly nameless villain, in a well-drawn but essentially redundant sequence that pretty much just restates what we heard in his previous appearance.

I know, I know: I nit and a I pick. However, I really enjoyed this Special, and I am sad, not just that this story will never be continued by Mr. Skeates, since he has passed, but that such a enthusiastic and unique voice in comics has been forever silenced.

I will say, though, that Mark's interview was kinda hard to get through, since Skeates was the type to go on and on and ON when asked the simplest of questions. Maybe it was a text/email situation? I cannot imagine someone rambling on like that in person or on the phone, but hey, who knows? :P

Wrapping this all up, let's take a look at:

 

Another tribute issue, this is one is dedicated to and features the excellent artwork of Donnie Page, who lost his battle with cancer in 2019.

I'll get this out of the way first: Lloyd Smith mentions in his editorial for this issue that he had his disagreements with Donnie, and I had one, too.

Donnie had commented on a post in one of our mutual FB groups that he didn't want "any of that gay shit" in his stories. I think the (crappy, yes) "Rawhide Kid" mini from the 2000s was somehow mentioned, but whatever. I took him to task for what he meant by his comment, knowing full well that it meant he was a homophobe, and then I was asked by Mark Davis to back off, as Donie was dealing with cancer.

So, I backed off. I even donated to Donnie's eventual crowdfunder for this struggle. But I'd be lying if I said I don't think about his shitty homophobic attitude every time I look at his work.

Which is too bad, because his art is GREAT. In his own words, Donnie fashioned himself "the world's greatest Sal Buscema clone," and he was not far off in saying so.  There's a lot of John Buscema in Donnie's style, too, and all of that is no mean feat. It's one things to SAY you want to draw like the Buscema brothers, it's another thing to DO it.

As for the stories on display here, the opener is a 12-pager featuring Blue Moon's Captain America and Bucky stand-ins "US Flag and Liberty Flag." The patriotic pair faces off directly against a Nazi Hulk and Hitler himself in an entertaining and supremely well illustrated tale that does nothing new (there is no real reason to set these two heroes apart from those that they evoke, here), but keeps things rockin and rollin nonetheless.

Next up is a 5-page sci-fi chiller called "King of the Hill" that, again, Donnie draws incredibly well. This one would have fit in really well with some of Marvel/Atlas's classic 5 pagers by Ditko and company back in the day.

Closing the issue out is the return of Depthon in "Personal Matters." It's another classic Marvel-style "misunderstanding melee" with a nice twist at the end, but it lacks any of the insight or introspection that you might have gotten used to in the Skeates special. Still, it's a fun one, and it's perfectly suited to Donnie Page's talents.

A bittersweet bonus comes next, in a pencilled page from a "Kragor the Savage" story that Donnie never got the chance to finish. Beyond the obvious, it's too bad, as I think this barbarian setting would REALLY have let Mr. Page strut his stuff.

In the end, this is a fitting, nicely put-together to one of the great lost talents of this indie comics scene.

And yes, all people are flawed, but I don't think that even death is a reason to avoid mentioning it entirely. If anything, we should mention these kinds of these even more loudly after someone passes, as it just might get people to think about fixing their own heads and hearts before their time comes.

I think about it a lot, and I work hard to try to do something about it.

Anyway, kids: Comics!!

Til next time.