Comic World News

April 22, 2008:
CWN and the Grand Finale! -

February 4, 2008:
In Conclusion - David ends his CWN run with Tezuka's MW from Vertical

February 2, 2008:
Acting Like You Have Nothing to Prove -

February 2, 2008:
The Shoegazer Returns - A New Year Begins, And Our Narrator Makes A Pledge

January 30, 2008:
Tim's Reviews -

September 13, 2007:
Wizard World Chicago Loot, Part One - Stykman, Empty Chamber, the Ztarian Saga, and yes, Little Bunny Foo Foo

February 15, 2007:
I Come Not to Bury Nick Cage... - But to mourn the death of my punchline

November 20, 2006:
The End - Rich's last Chicks & Romance

November 8, 2006:
Joann Sfar's Klezmer - And a Front Racks Hiatus

October 4, 2006:
This Month's Guest: Dave Gibbons - From the pages of Elephantmen!

September 18, 2006:
Back in Berlin - or How I spent my summer

July 29, 2006:
KICKING UP A STORM - An interview with David Lloyd

June 19, 2006:
You Ain't Never Had A Friend Like Me. - Graeme looks at Spidey's "genies"

December 18, 2005:
Disappointed - Sad news for fans of Busiek's CONAN, Stephen King, and others

December 13, 2004:
JUSTICE UNPLUGGED 2 at last !!! - By Fabrice Sapolsky & Xavier Fournier

December 2, 2004:
THE TWELFTH AND FINAL STEP - Say it ain't so, Dan.

November 23, 2004:
The importance of editing -

September 29, 2004:
Mystery and Conundrum indeed! - Where in the world is Jason Pomerantz?

September 13, 2004:
Hello and Goodbye and Hello Again - Change is in the air at CWN and it smells sweet.

August 12, 2004:
The Rise of the Web Toon - New Business Model or Dumb Luck?

July 30, 2004:
The Name Says it All... - Spin Doctors revamp Boomerang.

July 27, 2004:
Bigger Isn't Always Better -

June 8, 2004:
Pre-emptive Strike: MoCCA Arts Festival - Looking forward to the con, rather than looking back at it

The Layer Method
Our top Secret time-saving technique for creating and merging balloons and tails in Illustrator.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Autumn #1-4

Review by Michael May

Written by Tommy Kovac
Illustrated by Tommy Kovac

Published by SLG

"Autumn came turgid and sullen
The wind in her wake a lament
Nobody knew where she came from
And nobody knew where she went"

I don't remember why I passed Autumn by when its first issue came out. It's certainly the kind of thing I'd enjoy. The very title evokes all kinds of pleasant experiences from my favorite season: crisp fall air, delicious-smelling soups, hot drinks warming your body from the inside, amazing displays of color on trees, Halloween, Thanksgiving, the anticipation of Christmas. The fact that it was published by SLG, a company that knows something about delightfully spooky comics, should've only increased my interest. I should've tried the comic and I can't for the life of me figure out why I didn't.

The third issue got my attention though with its cover image of an elderly witch that, without so much as a caption, I instinctively knew was Baba Yaga. And a very spooky version of Baba Yaga it is. Tommy Kovac captures perfectly in that cover all the primal hate that I associate with the Russian folk legend. Still trying to figure out how I'd missed the series up to that point, I shot off an email to SLG and a few days later was pleased to find the first four issues in my mailbox.

The first page begins with the caption "Deep in the Black Wood" and shows three little acorns, high in an oak tree, slowly waking up with the realization that something is terribly wrong. By the last panel, their tiny faces are twisted in panicked horror as they shout, "Witch! Witch!" And so the girl named Autumn arrives in the Black Wood and I'm hooked already.

Autumn is a strange-looking, ageless girl with no memory and a squirrel familiar. She arrives for unknown reasons at the Nameless Village in an enormous clearing surrounded by the mysterious and dangerous Black Wood. The Village is inhabited by frightened, superstitious people who built their community in a spiral pattern so as to avoid having any crossroads, wear hideous masks in order to confuse the demons they believe are all around them, and use fake names in public to keep evil spirits from learning their real ones. Autumn meets a fortune teller named Schizandra and magically coerces the woman into providing her with a place to stay.

Autumn's stubborn refusal to wear a mask or accept a fake name quickly puts her in bad standing with the rest of the village. Using her potent magic to meddle in Schizandra's relatively harmless fortune telling doesn't endear her to the citizens either. Soon Autumn and her squirrel are welcomed only by a handsome naturalist named Splinter who has chosen to live outside the Nameless Village, at the edge of the Wood. And that's when Baba Yag (no final "a" in this version) and strange notes to Autumn written in blood on dead leaves start showing up.

Autumn pushes my buttons on so many levels. The aesthetics and the setting, with the Black Wood and the secret village and all the masks and superstitions, are as delicious and welcoming as Halloween night. And Kovac renders it in a wonderful Gorey-esque style. The coolest setting in the world does you no good though if you don't have a story to put in it, so it's great that Autumn contains enough mystery to fill the House of Usher. Who is Autumn? Who's writing the notes on those leaves? What has Autumn written in her sentient journal/grimoire that it won't let her read? What does Baba Yag have to do with Autumn and why do they both have similar markings on their foreheads?

The only thing that I don't connect with is Kovac's depiction of certain characters. He's great � better than great � with the supernatural aspects of the book, but some of the people, particularly Schizandra and the human form of Autumn's squirrel, look overly rendered, especially compared to the simple designs of Autumn and Splinter. That's a minor factor though in an otherwise engrossing reading experience.