1001 Arabian Nights: The Adventures of Sinbad #0

Another week before I head back to the day job, so let's see how I can do on making this blog actually daily, at least for a short time.

Back in the USA when we were visiting, I found a box of unread comics in our storage unit and grabbed a stack of them. This book came from that stack. No idea where I got it.

Title: 1001 Arabian Nights: The Adventures of Sinbad
Issue: 0
Publisher: Zenescope Entertainment
Date: April, 2008
Writer: Joe Brusha, Ralph Tedesco, Dan Wickline
Artist: Gus Vasquez
Colorist: Garry Henderson
Letterer: Alphabet Soup's Jim Reddington
Editor: Raven Gregory

This retelling of the adventures of Sinbad the Sailor begins aboard the ship of a traveling circus whose owner maintains control over his "freaks" by sorcerers means. Enter Sinbad, who needs the skills of the circus seer, and might possibly have use for a new ship and crew as well.

This was a good setup that quickly got in some action, established Sinbad, and introduced a ready-made supporting cast with a range of powers and abilities, and even hints of distinctive personalities. 

The art style overdoes the muscles and the female anatomy in something of an Image comics style that feels unnecessary for this legend, but the action sequences were crisp and well-paced.

This is a $.99 promotional book, which somewhat justifies the 13 pages of ads for 15 pages of story, but it would be nice to see these characters with a bit more breathing room in terms of page count. That said, this was good swashbuckling fun.

Rating: 6/10

Jurassic Strike Force 5: Special Edition

Here's a book from Free Comic Book Day 2012.

Title: Jurassic Strike Force 5: Special Edition
Publisher: Silver Dragon Books
Date: May, 2012
Writer: Joe Brusha, Neo Edmund
Artist: Pasquale Qualano
Colorist: Santosh Kumar Rath
Letterer: Jim Campbell
Editor: Matt Rogers
Cover: Mike Capprotti

"Earth's Original Heroes!"

So, the characters in this are humanoid dinosaurs. Oh, and the female characters has breasts. So that you can tell she's female, I suppose. Anyway the main character here is Rex. He looks kinda like The Lizard from Spider-Man. He dresses in futuristic battle armor and wields a lightsaber. No, really.

The story involves a training sequence gone wrong. The unnamed female character, who seems to be based on one of the crest-headed dinosaurs, is putting Rex through his paces in the holodeck/danger room when the system suddenly goes out of control and switches to "kill mode". Mayhem ensues.

The concept of humanoid dinosaurs who were "Earth's Original Heroes" is a fun, if goofy, original idea. Unfortunately, lightsabers and danger rooms and robot adversaries who resemble Cylons are not so original. This was a very short piece, probably not enough to judge the overall story by, but the details here were undermining the concept.

Rating: 4/10

World's Most Dangerous Animals

Among the many stacks I'm still working my way through is my 2012 haul from Free Comic Book Day.

Title: World's Most Dangerous Animals
Date: 2012
Publisher: Animal Planet / Silver Dragon Books
Writer: Joe Brusha, Neo Edmund, Robert Greenberger, Barbara Kesel, Paul Kupperberg, Aaron Rosenberg, Darren Vincenzo
Artist: Blanco, Jok, Carmen Nunez Carnero, Dsagar Fornies, Gervaso, Brabo, Mallea, Gordon Purcell, Matthew Reynolds, Alessandro Ventura, Space Goat, JL Giles-Rivera
Colorist: Space Goat, Blanco, Jok, Jeff Balke
Letterer: Jim Campbell
Cover: Steambot Studios
Editor: Bob Greenberger, Matt Rogers

Among the 2012 FCBD entries is this book produced for Animal Planet by Silver Dragon Studios (who had a huge crew working on it according to the credits). Sightly odd format, in between traditional comic sized and ashcan sized. The book is 28 pages of full color art, and contains three stories, two of which relate to the theme of the book.

First up is a grizzly bear story, told from the point of view of a survivor of a bear attack in Alaska. It's got the ring of truth to it, with plenty of details of the attack, which are told in a matter-of-fact style. A second story gets briefly mentioned in the narration, which flows nicely.

The second story is a bit more sensational in nature, involving a group of cyclists trapped by a saltwater croc in Australia. This is the more gruesome and more cinematic of the two stories, and it also contains its own internal backup tale, in this case about a different croc with a taste for small boats (though not their occupants, fortunately!).

Both of these stories feel like true accounts, but that is not actually ever verified anywhere in the book. Although both stories played to the sensational aspects of their respective animals, both did contain some good facts and interesting information.

The final story in the book was a preview of the upcoming Jurassic Strike Force 5 from Silver Dragon Books. It barely gets started, and never rises about the level of basic cliches.

But the animal stories that made up the main portion of this book were certainly an interesting read.

Rating: 6.5/10