Kristian Williams « The Comics Journal

The Night Bookmobile is a sweet, haunting tale, simply told and plainly illustrated. The story is an old one, of a girl who seeks an escape in stories, and finds it.

Garth Ennis’s Knights of the Sky, Part Six: Battler Britton and “Archangel”: “The whole truth is unthinkable.”

Posted by Kristian Williams on January 26th, 2011 at 12:01 AM

In the conclusion of his six-part essay on aerial combat in Garth Ennis’ works, Williams summarizes: The truth is insane. The trick is to find a way to make the insanity bearable.

Garth Ennis’s Knights of the Sky, Part Five: J for Jenny, The Night Witches, and more Phantom Eagle: “I have made my choice.”

Posted by Kristian Williams on January 25th, 2011 at 12:01 AM

In his war stories, Garth Ennis has repeatedly put enemies in dialogue, face to face; or set allies against each other, in debate. He has returned, almost obsessively, to questions of duty and compassion, and to the brutal, arbitrary nature of modern warfare.

Garth Ennis’s Knights of the Sky, Part Four: Finest Hour: “I think I owe you something.”

Posted by Kristian Williams on January 24th, 2011 at 12:01 AM

To understand Garth Ennis’s attitude about wars, and the people who fight them, it’s worth looking way back to 1993′s Hellblazer story “Finest Hour” (issue 71).

Garth Ennis’s Knights of the Sky, Part Three: Dan Dare: “We always fight squalid little men like you.”

Posted by Kristian Williams on January 21st, 2011 at 12:01 AM

Given the cruel satire of The Phantom Eagle, and the sober drama of “Condors,” it may be surprising to find Ennis idealizing, well, anything.

But he is nevertheless willing to engage in some myth-making of his own. Dan Dare (another resuscitated old-school comics hero) practically embodies the notions of courage, decency, fairness, mercy, moral resolve, and good sense — fortuitously unified with natural leadership, personal charisma, fighting skill, and rugged good looks. Plus, he’s an astronaut — and an Englishman. “He’s a British hero,” Ennis writes, “An English hero, by God, in a time when such characters are few and far between.”

Garth Ennis’s Knights of the Sky, Part Two: Condors: “Gentlemen: I hate you all.”

Posted by Kristian Williams on January 20th, 2011 at 12:01 AM

“Condors,” a selection from the second volume of Garth Ennis’s War Stories, finds four combatants — two from each side — hiding in a crater during intensive shelling. The setting is the battle of Ebro, toward the end of the Spanish Civil War. As the four are stuck together, unarmed, for hours, they each tell their stories and, naturally enough, argue about the war of which they are a part.

Garth Ennis’s Knights of the Sky, Part One: The Phantom Eagle

Posted by Kristian Williams on January 19th, 2011 at 12:01 AM

In this six-part essay, Kristian Williams tracks Garth Ennis’ treatment of aerial combat across various titles. In Part One, he looks at War is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle, which places the classic Fawcett/Marvel hero in World War I, and stresses how badly his heroic ideals and his peculiarly American arrogance clash with the nature of a big, bloody, pointless war.

Lio versus Calvin: Freudian Funnies

Posted by Kristian Williams on December 1st, 2010 at 12:01 AM

Lio’s direct referencing of Calvin makes the difference a matter of one’s attitude toward the past, toward tradition — in this case, toward comics. Calvin digs up trash, and calls it treasure; discovers, instead, that the tradition is dead and rotting. The very symbol of the decay is Calvin. But death, here, is not necessarily bad. Lio is by disposition morbid — curious about the monsters under the bed, a friend to aliens and zombies. So Lio is thrilled to find the dead boy, just as Calvin was thrilled to find some bugs. Maybe corpses are treasure. Lio’s is a gleeful nihilism.