While there have been a number of extraordinary writers in the comics field–Peter David, Neil Gaiman, and Alan Moore were the three I always counted on during my most dedicated comic reading years in the late eighties and early-to-mid-nineties — it really is an artist’s medium. A well-written comic book is dead on the page without good artwork. The writer certainly influences what you see on the page, but the guy with pencils is the one who has to make the abstract scripted descriptions into something compellingly substantive. While as a writer of prose, I’m (unsurprisingly) partial to the possibilities of the abstract — as all prose, ultimately, is — I would never seek to deny the distinct pleasure of a wonderfully realized comic book. I hope you won’t either, because we’re in a new golden age of comics. With the graphic novel format in ascendance, comics are becoming deeper and stranger, and they’ve never been more relevant.

A prime example: Nixon’s Pals, a graphic novel created by Joe Casey and my friend, the illustrator Chris Burnham. The story here jumps off from a delightful point of subversion, which takes the familiar figure of the overloaded parole office, in this case a schmoe named Nixon, and gives his situation a big twist. You see, Nixon’s parolees aren’t run-of-the-mill ex-cons, they’re ex-cons with superpowers, supervillains trying to go straight. This is such a smart idea, isn’t it? Think about all the supervillains in all the comic books you’ve ever read–there aren’t enough prisons in the world to lock up all these guys! It makes perfect sense that the government would seek to rehabilitate some of them.

But Nixon’s job is that much more complicated. One of his ex-cons is made of brick. Another lives inside a giant metal suit–he looks like the world’s biggest furnace with legs. If Nixon can’t convince guys like this to toe the straight and narrow, they’ll squash him, and maybe a few city blocks while they’re at it. There’s something funny about this, of course, but what I really love is the context that the story brings to these supervillains. These guys aren’t one-note. They didn’t just wake up one day and decide that they wanted to rule the world. They aren’t just evil. Like real people, supervillains are in no small part the creation of influences beyond their control. We learn that in many case the supervillain lifestyle is a kind of addiction, a path that Nixon’s pals started on simply because they saw no other, and the only way they’ve ever known. Meanwhile, for Nixon, the thankless task of keeping these guys from falling off the beam takes a mounting toll on his marriage, his sanity, and his face.

Again, it bears remarking on what an intelligent, sympathetic package this all adds up to.

And I haven’t even touched on the central storyline, as tasty and exciting a slice of adventure as you could want. Suffice to say it involves a paroled super-genius with an axe to grind, a nightmare machine, and a gigolo with ultraviolet eyes for Nixon’s wife.

None of which would matter — to bring us full circle — if Burnham’s artwork weren’t so fine. His panels have an engagingly cinematic feel. What he draws isn’t just vivid and detailed, but well composed. One comic trend I’ve long abhorred is that of the bursting figures, where the characters constantly seem to be threatening to swell and bristle right off the pages, and maybe even pop altogether, like some kind of super blister. In Nixon’s Pals there’s always a purposeful organization of figures within the panels, and of the panels within the page, and no one, even the most muscle-bound guys, look like they’re about to pop. Burnham’s art is sharp and direct, and ideally suited to a story that does such a clever job of fitting fantasy characters with real-world problems.

And another thing: Chris Burnham draws the most polyp-riffic zombies this side of Bernie Wrightson. This is a very good thing.

Go get it!

Cheers,

Owen