Another cover where I have no material for a caption gag.
Top Shelf Action Pack #1
Top Shelf Productions (March, 2012)
A free digital exclusive sample of various comics being released by Top Shelf. This features seven samples of their action style comics, meaning this is an anthology. So let’s go through these rapid-fire style.
Infinite Kung-Fu: “Soul Provider” by Kagan McLeod
Imagine a combination of Afro Samurai and Samurai Champloo. That’s what this story feels like to me. Sadly it’s an incomplete story, as our hero, Yang Lei Kung, is found after a battle and brought into service helping his two rescuers visit the emperor, to engaged in a kung-fu fight that one of the rescuers, Moog, dies from. Except he knows resurrection because that’s totally how kung-fu works, and he also knows Lei Kung’s destiny. It was okay but I am not the audience for this.
The Homeland Detective by Robert Venditti & Mike Huddleston
Dr. Laura Regan is an expert in viruses at the CDC. While attending a seminar her research partner is killed. Another doctor is concerned about a virus infecting a young patient and seeks her help but a detective pulls her away…and is then attacked by three government agents who kidnaps Laura. They claim the government is after her, but being a graphic novel preview we don’t get to learn why. This has an interesting concept but the art style just loses me. Some pages are sepia, some are a prism, and on it goes. The character models themselves are not terrible but very stylized. Overall the story looks good but the art I’m not a fan of.
Lost Dogs by Jeff Lemire
All we get is a man’s family being brutalized by some thugs when he takes his wife and daughter to a puppet show in the city. This is just too brutal for me. There’s no reason for these guys to do what they did that we see, especially killing a little girl. We see her body in the arms of her killer then see his wife raped in shadow. Also the art looks like a thumbnail draft rather than the final artwork. I just did not enjoy this story.
From Hell by Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell
This is the comic that the Johnny Depp movie was adapted from. I haven’t seen the movie because I really don’t care about another Jack The Ripper story. At this point those victims are turning in their graves not from the murders but how they’ve been exploited. At least they’re not blaming aliens this time. At least that’s what the description says. All we get here is some guy’s brother sleeps with a woman and gets her pregnant, marries her, then the first guy’s studio…catches fire I think and he takes taken away by men calling him “your highness”. I have no idea what’s going on. We trade graphic violence for graphic sex and I’m still not interested. I think the girl that gets her painting done and becomes the woman’s nanny is one of Jack’s victims but otherwise I’m clueless here. The art is serviceable as I think I know what they’re going for, matching the time period this story is set in. Overall not really my kind of story. I sense a pattern.
SuperF*ckers (or “barely trying to censor for the store shelves”) by James Kochalka
Then again, the last comic had graphic sex and most of the others thus far had graphic violence, so I’m not sure what to expect going in with a name like that. As it is I couldn’t finish it. It’s just a bunch of supposed superheroes being jerks to each other and swearing a lot. There’s some membership drive going on but I just stopped caring. Someone’s channeling Franco’s art style and that looks okay but this time it’s the story that’s losing me.
Bighead by Jeffrey Brown
I want to describe this supposed superhero parody but I have no idea how to. Some dude in a pimple costume fights a dude with a crab claw for an arm and beats him by gifting him a kitten, making him reform. There’s a supposed origin story that really isn’t. The last story is in Spanish for some reason. This got praised?
Any Empire by Nate Powell
Some kid who either just moved here or moving away finds out some students are killing turtles, and some girl is trying to find the culprits. That’s all I have and while it has the best artwork in the sampler that isn’t saying much and the story didn’t grab my attention.
overall thoughts by me
I don’t know who Top Shelf is targeting but it definitely isn’t someone like me. I don’t see myself getting into any of these titles, except maybe if I saw more of Homeland Detective. Even then I didn’t jibe with the art and coloring style. Most of these books are light on color if they have any at all. If you like any of these, you’re more than welcome to. I will not be joining you.
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