Along with Dennis Miller (no relation) he is another former hero of mine who seems to have fallen victim to the derangement of fame and 9-11.

He’d been warning us it was coming, this latest work, “Holy Terror”, a hardcover graphic novel that began life as a Batman comic and then got so off the rails that even DC Comics was finally able to tell Miller “No.”

I guess the Spirit movie hadn’t damaged his reputation enough, so he felt compelled to double down with a vulgar, paranoid, amateurish piece of work that feels more like someone trying to parody Frank Miller than it does a work from the guy who gave us “Daredevil: Born Again” or “Batman: Year One.”  Those works had subtlety, humanity and no small amount of nobility throughout them.

Maybe it was the influence of artist David Mazzucchelli.

“Holy Terror” will not be so fondly remembered.  Aside from being bad story-telling, with the first third of the book being a chase scene between characters who used to be Batman and Catwoman, culminating in the kind of tryst that doesn’t cut it at even a slash-fic level, “Holy Terror” is an anachronism.  It belongs in 2002, when the nation was still so scared and ignorant that we allowed Bush and company to lead us into the ruin we’re currently living.  It is ugly, with crude caricatures of prominent figures of the time, plus Barack Obama for some reason.

Oh yeah, Miller postulates there are evil Muslim Al Qaeda infiltrators everywhere, even heading our police forces.  They’re like SPECTRE only swarthier and they don’t speak English.  And torturing them is great.  Even post Abu Ghraib, it yields useful information.  Clearly Miller has been thinking this through a lot.

I’m not going to spend much more energy on this except to note some tragic irony in Frank Miller’s choices of late.  One of his heroes, justly so, was the late Will Eisner.  The Spirit was Eisner’s creation, but he went on to create much more and better material.  Among the last works of his life was a graphic novel debunking of the notorious “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, an odious, anti-semitic forgery from czarist Russia that has survived over a century now and has discolored the thinking of generations from 1930s Germany to the present-day middle east.

The terrible shame of “Holy Terror” is that it is of a kind and belongs on a bookshelf not with the works of Will Eisner, but with that despicable hate literature Mr. Eisner made it his business to undo.

Get some help, Frank. Or just go away.

Don't buy this. It is $30.00 of Bad.

2.  Would I still be watching “Boardwalk Empire” if it weren’t for the nudity and violence?  The post-WWI and prohibition era interests me and many of the actors are fine, but I’m starting to be less than dazzled by the writing. The world of ninety years ago when my grandparents were kids and women couldn’t vote is fascinating for more reasons than just its prurient details.

3. I still love “In Treatment” but I’m bothered by the likelihood that “Paul has a disease” could mark a serious downturn in its quality.

4. Thank goodness “Walking Dead” looks poised to live up to its source material. The first episode was great all the way through the climactic scene where Rick almost deafened himself firing his pistol in an enclosed space.  I love that the only fantastic element in the show is dead people walking around eating live ones.

If you click here I might make some:

http://www.amcspreadthedead.com/share?ref=1183771011

I really do love “The Walking Dead.”  If the show’s as good as the comic it will eat “Mad Men’s” brains.

1. Necrophilia 18.89%

2. John Judy 12.22%

3. Necrophilia Photos 6.67%

4. Weasel Image 6.67%

5. Incorruptible #8 3.33%

The lesson I take from this is that I need to write more about Mark Waid.

2.  Criminal, Vol. 5: The Sinners by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.

Honorable Mention goes to The Boys #43 by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson.

Scalped by Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera.

Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman and Charles Adlard.

Criminal by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.

Garth Ennis Battlefields by Garth and his art team.

Astro City by Kurt Busiek and Bent Eric Anderson.

Irredeemable and Incorruptible , two connected series by Mark Waid and a rotating cast of artists.

Daytripper by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon.

The Boys by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson.

Anything by James Sturm.  His latest was Market Day.

Rasl by Jeff Smith.

Afrodisiac GN by Brian Maruca and Jim Rugg.

Any one-shot by Warren Ellis.  I’ve noticed his mini-series seem all over the place, but the one-shots like Crecy and Frankenstein’s Womb are solid, well-structured and to the point.

Give me this and enough coconuts and I’m good to go.

DAYTRIPPER #6 of 10 by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon.  This limited series has one recurring gag: Every issue the lead character, a Brazilian obituary writer named Bras, dies at a different point in his life.  I thought it would get tiresome after a few issues but instead the message of how completely on the bubble of mortality we all live has come though loud and clear.  It’s disturbing to dwell on the fact that any day or moment could be our last, but while reading DAYTRIPPER you are safely detached from that truth, secure in the knowledge that, for a few pages a month at least, some other guy gets it instead of you.  Beautiful art and rich characters help draw you into each issue even though we now know how it ends.

REPUGLICANS by Steve Tatham and Pete Von Sholly.  This is a guilty pleasure with an emphasis on Pleasure.  Basically the artist, Von Sholly, draws demonic caricatures of some of the worst members of the current political far-right and author Tatham writes a brief blurb outlining their offenses against god and man.  You learn a little and laugh a lot at people who deserve it.  And yes, I would support a similar, equally well-crafted graphic indictment of some of the knaves of the Democratic establishment and its fellow travelers.  Sadly, I know of very few humorists on the right with the chops to pull it off and none of them work in comics.  Oh well…

Finally, stuff I await eagerly this coming week includes AMERICAN VAMPIRE #3, EX MACHINA #49, THE EXECUTOR graphic novel, GARTH ENNIS BATTLEFIELDS #6, SCALPED, VOL. 6: THE GNAWING in trade paperback, and WALKING DEAD #72.

Life is good.

ASTRO CITY: THE DARK AGE BOOK FOUR #4 of 4 by Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson.  Originally conceived as a sequel to the Busiek/Alex Ross hit MARVELS, this hasn’t been my favorite ASTRO CITY arc so far.  It feels long and the waits between issues have made it hard to maintain the excitement associated with earlier AC stories.  What’s of greatest interest is the fact that Busiek shares a bit of his process in the form of his redacted pitch notes to Marvel.  Also it’s the concluding chapter of his longest AC story since the series began.  Four books of four issues each, plus a prologue and likely epilogue to come makes this a magnum opus of sorts from a creator whose work always warrants a look.

THE BEATS: A GRAPHIC HISTORY SC by Harvey Pekar and Various Collaborators. This is a softcover edition of Pekar’s graphic exploration of a literary movement that shaped his generation. I honestly haven’t finished it yet, but the first chapter on Jack Kerouac really makes me want to.  Hopefully, this will prove more consistent in quality than Pekar’s previous STUDENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY GN.

ELECTRIC ANT #2 of 5 by David Mack and Pascal Alixe. Based on an original story by the legendary Philip K. Dick, this is already one of the most promising sci-fi comics in a long time.  The story of a robot who didn’t know he was a robot and found out the hard way.   Great art and a familiar Dick theme of figuring out how much we really know about ourselves and what it means to be human. Very trippy stuff blending altered states of awareness with speculative analog technology.

iZOMBIE #1 by Chris Roberson and Michael Allred. The adventures of a grave-robbing, brain-eating girl detective from DC Comics’ Vetigo line.  This is set in a more R-rated Buffy-verse sort of reality where a supernatural subculture abounds.  It has an advantage over the actual BUFFY comic books in that we have no previous familiarity with the characters from a different medium, in this case TV.  Even with the stylized Allred art this first issue is very accessible and inviting.  Give it a look if you can stomach the subject.  Speaking of which…

PRIDE, PREJUDICE & ZOMBIES GN by Jane Austen, Seth Grahame-Smith, Tony Lee and Cliff Richards.  This is the black and white graphic novelization of the gag-hit from 2009.  Basically it’s Austen’s original text modified to accommodate a new reality in which the Bennett sisters and Mister Darcy are fearless zombie killers and England is plagued with flesh-eating “unmentionables.”  It’s all in fun and a great way to make Austen more palatable to someone like me who loathes the British caste system of then and now, along with all its subtleties and nuance.  I suppose it’s satisfying to see a social structure that imposed apparent life or death consequences on its members’ behaviors actually have real life or death consequences.  The art by BUFFY veteran Cliff Richard feels sketchy and unfinished, but the story is there with a pace that gives the reader a good zombie battle every time you’re tempted to blow it off like you wanted to in college.

Finally, one from a couple of weeks ago that I only got around to this week:

OTHER LIVES HC written and drawn by Peter Bagge.  This is an original GN from the creator of HATE.  Whether or not you’re turned off by Bagge’s trademark grotesque art-style, this is a great noir thriller mixed in with a profound meditation on what identity means in the internet age.  Are we our avatars?  Are our parents and grandparents the same people they were before Ellis Island or after the birth of their kids?  Bagge calls our attention to all these things even as we recognize bits of our own identities in each of his screwed up creations.  A multi-layered story, ideally suited to the two-dimensional medium.

Enjoy!

1. Scalped #37 by Jason Aaron and Davide Furno.  Part two of the Shunka story, “A Fine Action of an Honorable and Catholic Spaniard.”  Older teens and up.

2. Walking Dead #61 by Robert Kirkman and Charles Adlard.  The latest chapter of the best ongoing zombie comic ever.  Amazing final page giving us frightening insight into how much our heroes have changed.  Older teens and up.  (Congrats to Sina Grace for his first issue as Editor!)

3. Blazing Combat softcover edition, written by Archie Goodwin and illustrated by the best artists ever to draw war comics.  Collecting all four issues, plus the original Frazetta covers, of the 60s war magazine that got killed by the Pentagon.  Younger teens and up.

4. Wilson hardcover, written and drawn by Daniel Clowes.  The latest from the creator of Ghost World.  A series of one page strips that add up to a novel.  Funny and beautiful. Older teens and up.

5. Instructions hardcover, written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated Charles Vess.  Instructions for how to survive an adventure in storybook land.  All ages. (My six year-old son was rapt.)

As always, if you read and don’t like any of the above just send it to me with your receipt and I’ll buy it from you. Honest.