Come on, Templeton. You of all people should give me a better cover to work with than this.
Holmes Incorporated #3 [Final Issue]
Ty Templeton’s Comic Boot Camp (August, 2012)
CREATOR/EDITOR/COLORIST: Ty Templeton
COVER ART: Adam Gorham
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Kathleen Gallagher
LETTERER/PRODUCTION: KT Smith
I said I wanted to go over the more recent anthologies left in my Drive Thru Comics library as bonus filler articles. So we might as well start by getting this series out of the way. Created by Templeton, the goal of this series was to allow his students a chance at published comics, a way to check their skills. The concept of the series is that the descendants of Sherlock & Mycroft Holmes and John Watson gather together to solve unusual cases. Imagine if the hound of the Baskervilles had been a cybernetic mutant werewolf working for the cultish Red Headed League and you’ll get the idea.
“Night Of The Living”
SCRIPT: James Cooper | ARTWORK: Brice Hall
With everything they’ve seen, how do the girls not believe in zombies? If this is your first story you won’t learn their names from this. Maybe they should start these stories with some kind of roll call at least. It’s been months since I’ve read an issue and the memory just isn’t there. They fight not-zombies and then the scientist who created them who turns himself into a perfected not-zombie, and the girl with the sword just slices him in half. The story is about as memorable as the characters.
“Hologram Holmes”
SCRIPT: Adira Rotstein | PENCILER: Eric Houstoun | INKER: Ty Templeton
This story tried. Artie, one of the few people I do remember–but not for the best reasons as he’s usually a huge jerk–makes a hologram of the original Sherlock Holmes for the elder of the family but he seems to reject it. Everyone else loves learning a few of the original’s tricks, but it’s not until Holmes the Second has a heart to heart with the holo-First that the story doesn’t have time to put any real emotion into that the gift is finally accepted. It was a nice idea but there’s no room for it, the curse of anthologies with this many stories. Look how often I bring it up in Golden Age comic reviews.
“The Terror Of Penitence House”
SCRIPT: Oliver Ho | ARTIST: Eduardo Suarez Florido
In contrast, this almost works. The team investigates an alleged haunting. The science explaining it away is made up, but it calls back to previous stories for Elisabeth, Sherlock III, and Edgar and their regrets in those stories. (Or in Edgar’s case, unrequited feeling for Elisabeth, who’s a Watson descendent so it isn’t incestuous). It falls a bit short on time still, but nice to see that little bit of continuity.
“Analysis Paralysis”
SCRIPT: Savannah Macintosh | ARTWORK: Tuhin Giri
Edgar…at least I think it’s Edgar, thinks Trey and Elisabeth were kidnapped, mistaking the clues like he was me when they really just went to the nightclub. That’s bad enough, but the art isn’t very good, either. No offense, but I don’t think they’re done with bootcamp.
“Artie Is Dead”
SCRIPT: Sam Noir | ARTIST: Rachel Wells
This could have been interesting. The family thinks Artie is dead and goes after Moriarty, Incorporated to bring them to justice. Except Steve Venom is actually Artie, whose robo duplicate was the one killed and he went undercover as the assassin and didn’t have a chance to tell Holmes, Incorporated. The problem is everything moves too fast and the art is not every good, so the emotion again doesn’t have time to settle in. Plus I really don’t care about the characters in general since they’re just action figures for the various writers to play with rather than set characters outside of Artie being a jerk and inventor. I just didn’t care about the story.
“Full Time Voyeur”
SCRIPT: Kevin Gorospe | ARTIST: Raymond Jin
I don’t understand the title. Ryan takes Trey to meet his family, a bunch out of Married…With Children minus the slut sister. Trey sends her some kind of poem to set up the arrangement, there’s a bit about Edgar having a museum or something…between the writing and the art I wasn’t even paying attention near the end because none of it was interesting. It brings Templeton’s notation about not needing talent at the end of the book into serious question.
“Flight Lessons”
SCRIPT: Daniel Reynolds | ARTIST: Meg Kearney
Edgar and Artie search for the thieves of a new exosuit, and Artie has to interview the pretty young inventor. I actually liked this one. Edgar is trying to both give Artie advice in meeting women and keep him on the case, until they found out she stole it to keep it from being weaponized. It’s kind of a cute story. Too bad it took this long for something to work in the time allowed. The art is also better than some of the other stories in this issue.
“Heroic Deeds”
SCRIPT: Eric Houston | ARTIST: Dylan Kloepher
Holmes the Second relays an old war story where he smoked out a Nazi saboteur. Quite literally, since how he was smoking gave him away. Second also acknowledges the naval officer who got rid of the bomb at the cost of his own life. The art still isn’t very good in this book, and the story needed a little more time, but it’s actually not that bad.
“Drinking Buddies”
SCRIPT: Tuhin Giri | ARTIST: Savannah Macintosh
A man tells how each of his previous operations were foiled by different members of Holmes, Incorporated, but now he’s learned his lesson. Except he hasn’t and the man he’s talking to is Second. The art’s the best in the comic. Still not great but it’s better than I’ve been seeing. And I do love these stories where the crook keeps getting caught by people trying to give him another chance and failing to learn his lesson, though they usually do at the end so this was different for me. I rather enjoyed this one, comparatively speaking. At least it fits the “runtime”.
“Finally, Peace And Quiet”
SCRIPT: Dylan Kloepfer | ARTIST: Marshall Geddes
In another flashback story, Third tries to take his kids on a fishing trip, but a little girl is kidnapped by accidentally drugged out eco extremists. This might be the worst art of the book. It looks more like layout sketches than the final piece and it’s not helped by a story of just stuff happening. This really needed some more editing. Were they against a deadline?
“Murder On The Moon”
SCRIPT: Mike Marano | ARTIST: Christopher Yao
Probably the best artwork in the whole comic is let down by a story that, once again, doesn’t have time to carry the emotional impact it wants to. Artie and Edgar journey to the company moonbase and find a slaughter. The killer? Edgar! Or rather an android based on him that went crazy, killing his creator (the real Edgar’s mentor) to prove itself. I really want to like this one but between the story itself and the fact that this series has done little to attach me to these characters, I just couldn’t find the interest I wanted.
“Recipe For Chaos”
SCRIPT: Kathleen Gallagher | ARTIST: Marshall Geddes
Our final story. Artie and Trey track a triad making counterfeit, and fully functional, weapons based on his toys. However, someone used the opportunity to take over his mind. This story will not in fact be continued, and I’m okay with that. It wasn’t very good.
And my apologies to the creators who did the one page tales, but these anthology reviews take long enough as it is. So I’m going to focus on the longer stories for the sake of time and sanity. This anthology is one of the reasons I stopped doing the daily comic reviews.
overall
If this wasn’t the last issue it would be my last issue. This series never really took the time to flesh out the characters. It’s an anthology, but it uses the same characters. Maybe there were too many writers? I don’t know. The art is not ready for professional work in all but one story. The potentially good stories needed more time to be told. I credit Templeton for trying to get his students practice and exposure but it’s a good thing these were freebies because they just weren’t ready yet. The concept of the series itself does have potential, and maybe when they’re more polished a set team could do something with it. As it stands, this just doesn’t work as a read.
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