Find This Book At: Ebay (Search by Title) Ebay (ISBN/Softcover) Half.com (Softcover) Amazon (Softcover) View our database entry Includes Issues: Concrete 1-5; Stories from Dark Horse Presents 1, 8, 10, 150; Dark Horse Presents Annual ’99: DHP Junior; Dark Horse Maverick Annual 2000; Streetwise Issue Dates: 1986, 1987, 1999, 2000, 2005 Creators: Bill Spicer, Paul Chadwick

This review contains light spoilers. Skip To The Verdict? »

It’s amazing how a work can be considered legendary (according to this collection’s cover) and obscure at the same time. Paul Chadwick‘s Concrete is a character who has been appearing in publication since I was born (in 1986), yet I only heard of from a friend I met in a History of Sequential Art class in 2009 – while discussing lesser known creations that deserved wider readership. On his advice, I saved an ebay search and managed to get all 6 volumes of this lovely Dark Horse reprint series.

Last night, I finally set aside a moment to read the first book, Depths. When I woke up, I was greeted with the serendipitous news (published two days ago in an excellent interview by Guerrilla Geek) that there would soon be another Concrete series running. With only one volume of exposure, it was still the most exciting thing I’ve read all day.

I admit, I’m already a fan. I’m not particular surprised. Concrete is exactly the kind of comic I enjoy – a deconstruction of the superhero, a lovingly crafted character study with semi-autobiographical elements, an adventure story, and something more slow, subtle, at times mesmerizing.

This volume contains the creation of a character immediately familiar, a man monster with obvious parallels to mainstream favorites like The Thing, but also closer to actual readers in his world and motivations.

Some of the stories here have been collected before, in the confusingly named The Complete Concrete and Concrete: Complete Short Stories – these books are probably collector’s items, and are thick, meaty volumes, but the Dark Horse reprint series is more extensive, running 6 volumes strong at this time. Chadwick’s tales are collected in roughly chronological story order (according to author’s intention, it’s not always exactly chronological, as the author’s writing style includes many flashbacks, character told stories, and jumps in time to allow exploration of a specific concept or idea.)

From the first page, we’re introduced to one of the main supporting cast, aspiring writer Larry. Indirectly, we’re also introduced to Concrete himself, through branded clothing and shopping bags carried by people walking by – he’s obviously famous, a celebrity fad of some sort.

This early sequence sets the mood wonderfully – Terry has an awkward interaction with a potential date and an ex-roommate. He answers a want ad for a typist, and wanders off, his story intersecting with Concrete’s apartment through their shared listening of a radio segment on the stone man.

We find Concrete pacing in his apartment, displeased with his portrayal, while a pretty young woman, Maureen, listens to him, writing on a desk (next to some hypodermic needles.)

Concrete lets drop that his civilian career was as a speechwriter, introducing another of the main players, his senator friend and mentor.

This is page four, and while packed with information, it flows much more organically than my description, giving away much without tilting any hands. While it’s the building story that will grab you, I saw something extremely profound here – everyone is writing.

Our three main characters are introduced, one is an ex-speechwriter, the other a hopeful novelist now acting as a reporter for the first, and the third we soon learn is a biologist journaling her own reports about Concrete’s unique body. This desire to create, record, tell your story, tie your story to great events around you – the human desire for some kind of meaning in life – it’s a constant theme here, one perhaps easy to overlook alongside the more graphically expressed stories of survival, of coping when separated from those around you by your own form.

It’s obvious that Concrete, and to an extent every character, is an extension of Chadwick himself. Like any enjoyable fictional being, the exact boundaries are never clear (where Concrete ends and Chadwick begins, what memories they share, how much is metaphor and how much based on some kind of real life event.) But by the end of the volume some shared memories and motivations are undeniable – the last story, “Vagabond” is actually an autobiographical short, but it flows almost seamlessly from the Concrete content – up until the last page, I didn’t quite realize that this wasn’t a story of Concrete’s past, but the author’s.

There is a shared respect and admiration (between the author and his creation) for the adventurous writers of ages past.

Both for the prestige that comes with exploring the unknown and pushing limits, but also the opportunity for reverie and self discovery that such journeys bring. There are things a man will discover about himself when on the edge, when faced with mortality.

And for Concrete, now existing in a near indestructible rock-like shell, the journeys are extreme and far reaching – he is a fan, for example, of long distance (like an ocean!) swimming and deep sea diving, though his heavily form makes it extremely dangerous to him.

Of course, some of the book’s drama comes in the form of danger to his companions, easily at greater risk due to their squishy bodies – leaving some room for super-style-heroics. But this isn’t a story overly concerned with spandex origins and super powered villains.

Concrete’s foes are familiar, mundane – jealousy, greed, ego, fear, bad decisions, childhood trauma.

As a man who can hardly feel, cannot taste, Concrete has become focused primarily inwardly, though he expresses this through a push for his life to mean something, challenge something (beyond his obvious physical existence as a curiosity.)

In a slight twist, one of his senses, vision, has been increased drastically. Though perhaps it’s simply an extension of the author’s own existence as a visual person, it may also be the motivation for our protagonist to keep moving forward, resist becoming a rock in truth. He can see what’s out there, see what’s coming.

Having mentioned Chadwick’s visual nature, we must discuss the beautiful art in this book. Like many independent comics, the work here was originally published in Black and White, just as it’s found in this reprint.

We’ve mentioned that some of the colorless Showcase and Essentials collections fare rather well, but this book is a shining example of what can be accomplished with ink and just the barest minimum of gray tones.

Many pages, especially those featuring underwater exploration, have spectacular displays of lovingly detailed life, acutely conveying the sense of wonder that can accompany exploration of the unknown.

Every character is full of life and expression, recognizable and iconic. Terry, bearded and bespectacled, reminds me of myself and many other aspiring creatives. Maureen, lovely and sharp, is a stand in for my fiance and every beautiful, smart woman. Concrete is all of us – especially when we feel uncomfortable or apart from humanity. Each of them is uniquely themselves.

It’s a strength of the medium. With the right amount of lines, not too many, not too few, characters are recognizable in every panel, their emotions and history plain on their faces, but still imprintable. On related note, I think many readers often find it necessary to identify superheroes by hair color when out of costume – without color here, self-projection becomes easier and Chadwick’s recognizable characters are even more impressive.

The art flows with the text. Shifting perspectives, dynamic layouts, plenty of small references to art history and sides jokes flying by in the background.

It all comes together to create stories capable of evoking eerie horror, humor dark and light, tenderness, laugh out loud moments, and disgust. A human story, in every aspect.

Absolutely brilliant work.

Verdict:
5 out of 5. A story about a human trapped in a strange body, moved to adventure. And a story about the human desire to have their story told, to be known and understood. A subtle, intriguing work, with too many layers to discuss in one sitting.

Considering that these books seem to be constantly available new and lightly used for about 2 dollars each on Amazon, you have little excuse for not giving Concrete a try. I’m sorry that I took so long to get to it myself.

Essential Continuity:
For Concrete, I’d say this book is essential – start here and read through the Dark Horse editions by the numbers on the spine.

Read first:
This is the first book in the Concrete series.

Read next:
The obvious next step is Concrete Vol. 2: Heights. I didn’t think that this book was too much, but I’ve heard that Chadwick can get a little heavy and/or preachy in this series, but only enough that it’s sometimes advisable to not read all the books back to back. I unfortunately don’t have time to do that anyway but I’ll let you know if I feel that’s the case as I read through the series.

« Back to the top?

Join the forum discussion on this post

8 Comments

This review is spoiler free! Skip To The Verdict? »

This was the first book we ever reviewed on this site. Now that I’m going through the DC timeline and have reached the westerns, I wanted to take the opportunity to rework this post, mainly to add some images to what was once an entirely image-free review. Which was totally boring, right?

Showcase Presents: Bat Lash. Lets get the facts right outta the gate: It’s small for a showcase volume, weighing in at 240 pages, which is about half of your average Showcase. On the flipside, it’s cheap – only 9.99 meaning you can probably find it for around five dollars.

I’ll say right at the top that I think it’s worth your money, be it full price or used. It’s an enjoyable little Western romp, nowhere near as brutal as Jonah Hex, good for quick evening’s read or a few short stories caught in your free minutes during the week. I won’t lie, I read it in the bathroom between all the other things I’ve been up to lately.

Each story, except for the last few, stands fine completely on its own – like most Pre-Crisis DC. However, being primarily Bronze Age material, it does build on itself and Bat Lash grows on you.

This might be surprising, because he’s not particularly fleshed out – written in that hamfisted catch phrase spouting way. In any given story, he’s going to either pull a flower from his hat or put one into it, or both. He’s going to admonish some roughneck for exposing him to violence, because he hates it, and then either kill them or beat them senseless. He’s going to kiss a lady and leave her standing there thinking about what a rouge he is… in that dashing way.

He’ll do all this with a smile on his face and greed in his heart and somehow remain likable, for a misogynistic bastard. Similarly, though the book is chock full of ethnic stereotypes and terribly written women, it somehow slides by because at 40 years old it’s practically a historical text. As a reader, I just had to smile and nod. “Yup, comics are awful. But fun.” It’s not as bad as plenty of its contemporaries – not to mention some really slimy stuff that would come years later.

There are some weird moments. Because the volume collects stories written over a large time range, the latter stories feel very different from the earlier ones. Bat Lash is less of a wanderer and more of a gambler in the last three – he’ll have the same phrasing and flower, but the rest of him somehow feels off. I think I prefer the earlier work, mostly by Sergio Aragones, to the stories written by Len Wein.

The art, however, doesn’t feel dated at all. The styles are obviously that of their era, but the work is excellent!

It doesn’t feel lacking for being black and white. In fact, the crisp linework is downright enjoyable. Nick Cardy rocks it out with expressions that are full of life and humor and the inked art never falls flat.

In fact, I was sometimes surprised by dynamic layouts and some very interesting artistic choices. I shouldn’t have been, seeing as many of the contributors were also featured in MAD Magazine. I was often reminded of some of my childhood favorites from that publication.

It’s not quite as rough as DeZuniga’s work in Jonah Hex, which makes sense – Bat Lash is a more cartoonish character – a dapper dandy compared to Hex’s tortured gunfighter.

To sum it up, the book was both what I expected and a pleasant surprise. I knew I was going to be reading a western, so I was prepared for a white-male-centric ode to violence, but the text on the back didn’t prepare me for the slapstick action and frolicking pacing.

Verdict:
3.5 out of 5 – Good! Not as deep or well written as the Jonah Hex stories, but reasonably priced and worth buying new. Don’t take it too seriously.

Essential Continuity:
No. Bat Lash isn’t ever a big character much elsewhere, and I’m pretty sure his presence doesn’t need much explanation.

What Should You Read First:
This volume stands fine on its own. It works as an introduction to DC Westerns of the period and doesn’t feature any characters from prior publications. I’d say it’s an excellent companion to Showcase Presents: Jonah Hex. The two shared publications at times and together represent a good sampling of the Bronze Age.

What Should You Read Next:
Probably the modern interpretation, Bat Lash: Guns and Roses, which I’ll be getting to soon as I work my way through,  or of course, Jonah Hex. Bat Lash does show up in later volumes.

« Back to the top?

Join the forum discussion on this post

10 Comments

Find This Book At: Ebay (Search by Title) Ebay (ISBN/Softcover) Half.com (Softcover) Amazon (Softcover) View our database entry Includes Issues: All-Star Western 10; Weird Western Tales 14, 17, 22, 26, 29-30; Jonah Hex 2, 4 Issue Dates: February 1972 – September 1977 Creators: E. Nelson Bridwell, Elizabeth Berube, George Moliterni, Joe Orlando, John Albano, José Luis García-López, Luis Dominquez, Mark Hanerfeld, Michael L. Fleisher, Noly Panaligan, Paul Levitz, Russell Carley, Tony DeZuniga

This review contains light spoilers. Skip To The Verdict? »

Surprise! Classic Jonah Hex, ugly-as-cuss bounty hunter, now in color. It’s about time!

Most of the stories in this collection are also printed in black and white inside Showcase Presents: Jonah Hex Vol. 1, which we just reviewed. For more discussion about the creators and general feel of the stories, check out that link.

Of the nine stories here, only those from Jonah Hex issues 2 and 4 are unique to this volume. With 23 Jonah Hex stories and 8 supplementary western tales in the showcase for a dollar less cover price, the consumer is faced with a bit of a conundrum.

Are the two extra stories here worth it for a collector? Does the color make this volume a better purchase?

And why were these particular stories chosen, when so many of Hex’s appearances remain uncollected, and so many of the stories left out are high quality – what made the editors pick these ones over simply reprinting all of his enjoyable tales in order and releasing a couple separate trades?

Let’s hit that last question first. No doubt this paperback collection was brought forth as one half response to the continued success of Hex’s contemporary ongoing and one half as a commercially viable tie in the Jonah Hex film.

As such, it’s designed for modern readers – not simply people interested in an archive of quality comics of the past, but new readers who generally expect comics they pick up to be in color. Plus, modern comics have plot arcs – everyone knows that, right? Or at least reoccurring characters.

In the Bronze Age, when these stories were produced, comics were generally pretty light on continuity. Jonah Hex had some, but much of it was simply based on finding more out about the man through his actions – not any sort of cast or family that built around the main character.

The few people that did have reoccurring roles were only evident every few issues – generally not even spread across sequential publications (except for Weird Western Tales 29-30, all other stories that continued to a second issue generally ended with most of the main characters except for Hex dying.)

It made sense for the time when comics were still available on the racks in non-specialty stores. A kid should be able to pick up a Western story and jump right in, perhaps just picking by a main character they liked if anything. The modern age Hex creators understand this appeal and have brought it back to an extent, but they can’t help building on the character in more concrete ways.

That brings us back to this volume. It’s an editorial attempt to squeeze together the “story” of Jonah Hex, his origins, and the climax of his conflict with the main reoccurring character. They’ve done this by simply taking every issue that deals with this story and slapping them together into a book. Does it work? Kind of.

All the stories are good, but at least one suffers from this editorial snipping. While the first issue is the same introduction that starts the Showcase trade, it jumps immediately to Weird Western Tales 14, skipping three Hex stories (good ones, too!) It’s ok that they need to condense the story for the trade, but unfortunately issue 13 introduced a character who plays an important role in issue 14 – who here just appears without any explanation whatsoever. When the plot moves onto the events that effect this character, Hex’s reaction makes almost no sense without the added context of the previous issue.

I suppose that to a reader unfamiliar with the mixed content, it may not be too jarring (we’re used to comics characters reacting in unpredictable ways) but the story loses a lot of its nuance from this omission. While there are a few other places where a character pops in who is dealt with in an unprinted story, none of the lost content is really obvious besides this example.

As for the ongoing plotline, reading it in quick succession gives it a sense of increased importance in Hex’s life.

It’s an enjoyable story overall, and all the elements we discussed last time are still there, though without the slow reveal things just don’t seem as subtle.

It’s funny, we often think of pre-crisis comics as being very heavy handed (and the dialogue certainly seems straightforward enough) but because they weren’t so focused on character building, when it happened sometimes it was just a little more organic.

The two additional stories are from the Jonah Hex ongoing, published after the content from the western anthology books. Perhaps it’s because these two stories are also presented without their framing issues, but they don’t seem as strong as the earlier work. In fact, they do away with the drama of the original ending to Hex’s ongoing plot, and even give him a named nemesis in the last issue – “The Chameleon!” – who seems like he will be quite a thorn in Hex’s side by the ominous “The End?” printed on the last page.

But this is a bit of a curve-ball – even in the uncollected issues of the Jonah Hex ongoing, I think the Chameleon only shows up once or twice more at most, hardly The Joker to Hex’s Batman. A protagonist like our scarred gunfighter just doesn’t need a rogues gallery or shadowy string puller, he’s got plenty of ornery characters to deal with on a daily basis.

It just seems like an awkward choice to me – sure, these last issues contain the same reoccurring character that unifies the rest of the book, but they also weaken the overall arc. The relatively self contained plots in the issues themselves are enjoyable enough, but no more so than any of the omitted issues. They could have dropped the last one in favor of Weird Western Tales 13.

My theory is that the editors wanted to include at least two issues that were before uncollected to try and encourage collectors to buy the book. For that, perhaps, I’m personally grateful, though the selection here makes it a bit harder for me to recommend this book (over the Showcase) to new readers.

Our last unanswered question is about the color, redone for this volume by Heroic Age. They do a great job, true to the original intents.

The colors are beautiful flats, with none of the anachronistic gradients modern creators sometimes add to old comics in an attempt to spruce them up. It’s the correct choice for this book, considering the strength of the inked linework.

I have a couple minor quibbles (mainly with the skin color of one character quite obviously not correct on two pages) but for the most part I think they did a great job.

I believe that the color here will make the book much more appealing to those flipping through on the shelf, where it will stand up just fine compared to other comics classics.

I don’t think that it actually makes the stories much more enjoyable (the art did its job very well in the black and white volume) but the experience was a bit different – explosions seemed to jump out more, but some punch outs weren’t as stunning as they were in the black and white volume.

The larger scenes benefit the most – big spreads where it was easy to lose the action, landscapes with lots of small detail, these illustrations are now much clearer.

You’ll be able to make your own mind up better with visual comparisons, so I’m including a couple here before my own conclusion. Click any of these to see them larger:

Black and White from Showcase Presents: Jonah Hex

Original Color from Weird Western Tales 26

Color from Welcome To Paradise

Black and White from Showcase Presents: Jonah Hex

Color from Welcome To Paradise

So, how do I feel about this book? Personally, I’m very happy to own it. I’m an obsessive collector when it comes to DC and having those two extra issues is more than enough to get me to buy this book.

As story collection, it’s kind of awkward – Hex is better served in the showcase where you can read his full early adventures in order.

As for the art, it will be a matter of preference. The black and white showcase books have really grown on me and the Jonah Hex volume is especially strong. While it satisfied my curiosity to see the colors of some people’s shirts, perhaps, it didn’t add much else for me.

One thing that may influence your decision is that even though the cover price for this book is higher than the showcase book (which has about 3 times the page count), the showcase book was printed longer ago which means it may be harder to find – if you tend to buy your books used, chances are “Welcome to Paradise” can be found quicker for cheaper.

If this was the only Jonah Hex book available, it would be a solid five stars. If it’s the only Jonah Hex book you can find, pick it up without hesitation. If you dislike black and white comics, pick it up without hesitation.

If you’re a collector or a western fan, or are good at finding cheap trades, just grab them both.

Verdict:
4 out of 5. The material here is great, and even though we spent most of our review discussing the quirks of the editorial direction of the collection, the bottom line is that these are classic comics collected here in color for the first time.

Essential Continuity:
Jonah Hex is a fairly continuity-light comic, at least the issues that are currently collected are, both modern and bronze age. (Uncollected Jonah Hex comics include some ongoing plots and strange time travel arcs, but to be honest I just don’t know too much about them. Hope they get around to putting them in trade!)

Both this and the Showcase Presents volume tell his origin and early story, either one can be considered the “first” Jonah Hex collection.

Read first:
You will have to decide which seems more appealing to you:

More story with a slower (possibly more satisfying) reveal – Showcase Presents Jonah Hex Vol. 1

Story in color, condensed for a quick read – this volume!

Read next:
My next stop will be the 1993 Vertigo series collected in Jonah Hex: Two-Gun Mojo, which seems to be widely considered as out of continuity. I’ll let you know my thoughts on that soon.

Since that book is hard to find, you may wish to skip ahead to the start of Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti‘s critically acclaimed 2006 series collected in Jonah Hex Vol. 1: Face Full Of Violence.

« Back to the top?

Join the forum discussion on this post

7 Comments

I’ve updated all 8 Sandman Mystery Theatre books, added a header and description for Sandman Wesley Dodds.

I’ve also updated the description for the all purpose “Sandman” tag, which already had a header image I made from a picture of Dodds and Dream.

I’ve created a “The Endless” tag to be used to indicate any member of that pantheon. Dream and The Endless now both have header pictures.

Most of these tag lists are in no way complete right now, but they’ll fill in. I’ve tagged Dream and The Endless on all the Neil Gaiman ongoing collections, at least.

I uploaded a picture for Neil Gaiman‘s header, which makes him the first creator with a picture up! Creator lists are a long way from being done (once enough books are fully tagged and hit up with the chronological sorting info, the creator lists will be chronological by collected contents, instead of by the recommended reading order as they are now.)

Perhaps those sandman books will be my next update. I’ll see how much I can get into tonight. (decided to save the next Jonah Hex review for sometime tomorrow.. although I guess it’s this morning now!)

9 Comments

Totally unrelated image, but I liked it.

I think I’m going to pull in another review tonight for the next Jonah Hex book, since it shouldn’t require too much additional reading or deliberation – being mostly material already in the showcase I just reviewed.

So just doing a few quick updates.

The Batman: The Return reading order has had a couple other issues added, mainly the post Batman Inc tie ins.

Thanks to the advice of my pals on Reddit, I’ve added Hellblazer: Fear and Loathing to the Swamp Thing tag list, with cover and full publication information complete. Not sure how I missed that one – can’t wait until I find the time to finish the whole Hellblazer list. Obviously I’ve got a soft spot for these vertigo titles.

I also noticed that there were two tags for one character – “The Phantom Stranger” and “Phantom Stranger” – I haven’t decided what I like better, but I’ve changed all the books to just have “Phantom Stranger” for now since more were tagged with that one making it an easier switch – we can change them all to either at a later date.

Comment!