Recommended Reading for 5/5: Term Life

So, last Friday, I'm collapsed on the couch, watching TV, and one of those ads you see for, "Now playing on Direct TV Cinema, the same day as in theatres," comes on, and it's a commercial, so I'm barely paying attention. But somewhere around the end of the commercial I looked up, because this sounded familiar. And when the title came up, I was running to my shelves, because I knew it was. And lo and behold, there is a comic book based movie that came out that no one was talking about! You'd think, in this day, and age, adding, "Based on the Graphic Novel" would have been somewhere in the trailer, but whatever. So, I reread the book, having remembered liking it, and I decided to make it this week's recommended reading.

Term Life is an original graphic novel published by Image back in 2011. Written by A.J. Lieberman (who I've written about before, as he wrote the quirky Cowboy/Ninja/Viking) and drawn by Nick Thornborrow, it's the story of Nick Barrow (a character name the writer had long before he met the similarly named artist), a guy who plans heists and sells the plans to crews to pull off. When a heist he sells to the son of a Russian mob kingpin leads to the death of said son at the hands of dirty cops who set up the heist and slipped the info to Nick, Nick is on the run from the Russians and the cops, and knows he has no way out, so he makes a Hail Mary: he takes a million dollar life insurance policy out on himself, making Cate, the daughter he hasn't seen in a decade, the beneficiary. But when the Russians catch wind that Nick has a daughter, Nick grabs Cate and it's a whirwind road trip so Nick can survive the twenty-one days until the policy kicks in, while still trying to find out how everything went so far south.

The plot of Term Life seems simple enough, and it's a pretty classic set-up for a crime story with the protagonist caught between two rival crooked gangs and trying to find his way out of it. But the difference is in the nuance here. Nick isn't trying to find his way out. He knows he's dead. The life insurance policy is the clock counting down to zero here, and Nick just wants to make it to that. The whole book has an interesting relationship with time. While there is a linear spine of "the present" scenes shift not just around in space, but in time, and not in the traditional flashback way. A scene may pop up that informs the scene before  it on the page that takes place well before that prior scene. It keeps you guessing and thinking, keeps you analyzing exactly what is going on. And in most cases, the time and place shifts are announced by a big banner with a character name or a location, so you do know when these changes happen so it's not confusing to the reader. One exception to this is one of the big twists at the end of the book, which is cleverly done as a reverse angle of an earlier scene that was structured to mislead the readers into thinking one thing while something else is going on; it's like the structure allows the creators to play a game of three card monte on the reader.

Nick is a charming lead. He's a crook, no doubt, and he doesn't make excuses for it. When Cate asks him why he does what he does, his response is simple, "Only thing I'm good at." It would be easy to play on the trope of him being the hands off criminal and have him be squeamish and awkward when it comes to dealing violence, but he's not. When the Russians come after Cate, he shoots them dead without compunction. But he doesn't revel in the violence, and he tries to talk and think his way out of pretty much all the situations he's in before resorting to violence.

Cate starts out the book as a sort of typical, rebellious, snotty teenager, but the more you see her, the more you realize how tough she's had it: no dad and an alcoholic mom who leaves her home alone for weeks at a time at the age of thirteen so she can go detox. And now her dad shows up, uninvited, and men are shooting at them. The slow building of the relationship between her and Nick is the emotional center of the book, and the more time we spend with Cate, the more rounded she becomes, and the more you root for her and Nick to make it; the scene where she finds out about the life insurance policy and Nick's plan is heartbreaking as you see the two have developed a real love for each other.. But this is pretty much a noir, and so you know a happy ending isn't in the cards for everyone.

And while Nick and Cate are the central, most fleshed out characters, the supporting characters and villains of the book are also interesting. Viktor, the Russian mobster after Nick, isn't given a lot of character, but that's ok; he is what he needs to be, a big scary mobster. The Tolstoy brothers, hitmen brothers who work for Viktor, provide some comic relief, as they seem to spend more time punching each other than doing their jobs. Sheriff Braydon, the small town sheriff of a town where Nick and Cate go to lay low, feels like a character who had more going on, and I would have liked to spend more time getting to know him; the same can be said for Chin, Nick's old friend who he used to own a Chinese food restaurant with,

But the highlight of the other characters are the Choirboys, the society of crooked cops who set everything in motion be manipulating Nick and by extension the Russians into stealing evidence against them so they can destroy it and anyone who knows anything about it. Among them, there are two who are key. Matty Miller is the cop who got pinched with the evidence that could send the Choir Boys to jail, and even once it's gone, he's the one having a crisis of conscience, one that will prove deadly for him; in a noir, a conscience gets you killed nine times out of ten. And then there's the big boss; Keenan. Probably the only character who is as good at the game as Nick, he's a cold, calculating bastard, the kind of guy you don't want to get on the wrong side of, and every page he's on is full of tension.

The art for the book suits its gritty crime drama style perfectly. Nick Thornborrow is able to convey the action of the chase and the fights with gusto, and is also able to capture the quieter moments between Nick and Cate. His characters have strong, distinct, faces with a lot of emotion. The backgrounds to most panels are sketchy, which draws the eye more to the action of the characters at the front of a panel, and here feels like a stylistic choice rather than an artist who doesn't feel like drawing backgrounds.

I haven't seen the movie version that drew my attention back to this book yet, and it seems like it was a pretty limited release on the big screen; it is available on Direct TV on demand and for digital download through Amazon and iTunes. The trailer has some dialogue that is lifted right out of the book, and it seems fairly faithful, although it looks like the Russian mob has been replaced by a drug cartel. The cast is pretty a-list, with Vince Vaughan as Nick and Hailee Steinfeld as Cate, Bill Paxton as Keenan, and Terence Howard as Sheriff Braydon. There seem to bee a few new characters in the film, Jimmy Lincoln, a buddy of Nick's, played by Jon Favreau, and Harper, who works with Nick, played by the inimitable Jonathan Banks, whose appearance in anything elevates it to a must see to me.

Term Life is an exciting, enjoyable crime story with a solid story and emotional center. If you enjoy crime comics, this is a book worth tracking down.

Term Life is in print, so should be available or orderable from any comic shop.

Recommended Reading for 12/5: Cowboy Ninja Viking

A couple weeks ago, it was announced that Chris Pratt, this year's breakout star thanks to his work voicing Emmet in The Lego Movie and playing Star Lord in a little movie called Guardians of the Galaxy, would be starring in a film adaptation of a fairly obscure Image comic from 2009-2010, Cowboy Ninja Viking. I had that moment of comic fan hipster pride, as, "I read that comic when it was coming out." And I remembered enjoying the heck out of it, but it was some years ago, and memories can be fuzzy. Fortunately, I have ready access to more of my collection now that certain plans are coming together (that I will be writing about in the near future as they reach fruition), so I was able to find my copies, and as it turns out, it's actually even better than I remember.

The high concept on this book is brilliant in its madness and simplicity. A genius and arrogant psychologist and the US government worked together to use, "experimental past life regression therapies, (&) pioneering pharmacological enhancements" to take people with multiple personalities and let the prime personality channel the abilities of the others to make deadly assassins. As any reasonable person might imagine, this ends poorly. Six years later, when the series begins, though, it looks like these Triplets, thus named because each person has three alternate personalities with a specific set of skills, are back, and so the original doctor must find the one Triplet he knows he can trust and track down the others.

If you couldn't figure it out from that paragraph, the titles of the comic references that particular Triplet. Duncan was the success of the project, basically making him the most stable of a group of highly unstable psychopaths, which is like saying this one poison will kill you quicker than the others. Duncan himself is a fairly normal seeming guy, not threatening and not even very noticeable. But with his other personalities in his head, well he's not normal at all. And one of the charms of the way the book is written is that each of the Triplets' different personalities are really that: personalities. These aren't just different versions of the same guy, but are very distinct. Cowboy, for instance, pictures himself as a ladies man and is always on the hunt for, shall we say, companionship, and he has no issue with providing compensation for it. Viking is a pretty typical viking, who figures everything can be solved with his axe. And Ninja tends to spout platitudes and philosophy, which frustrates the hell out of the others. But they're all super deadly, and Duncan has no problem channeling them to fight evil. Or anyone that bugs him. So, yeah, crazy.

I will tell you flat out, Duncan won the Triplet lottery. As we see other Triplets, we see that the personalities aren't all quite as useful in combat as Duncan's three. Grear, for instance, Dunca's ex-wife, is Sniper Martial Artist Chef. That last one is kind of persnickety about people bashing her food, and wields a mean frying pan, but not optimal in combat. Or there's Yoshitiki Ammo, who is Pirate Gladiator Oceanographer. Steed Malbranque is Navy SEAL Hitman Roadie; not useful on that last one, but he has some great stories. And there are fourteen of these characters total! I won't sit here and list what they all can do, despite it being a ton of fun, because we never see exactly what all of them can do. But I will say Joan of Arc and Genghis Khan are in there, as are archers, a highlander, and a hairdresser.

There is a supporting cast in the comic that aren't Triplets too. Sara Nix is Duncan's partner and handler. She's almost heart breakingly normal, or at least desires to be on some level. She was working for Dr. Sebastian Ghislain,the man who designed the Triplet program and who we'll get to in a minute, and was about to move on to a bigger job in three days (which she never fails to point out when things get hairy, in the same way Dante in Clerks says he "isn't supposed to be here today.") when the Triplets resurfaced and she was sucked into Duncan's orbit. Nix is efficient, intelligent, and likes Duncan. And Duncan clearly develops feelings for her quickly, and although he won't tell her, his quiet love for her and desire to protect her is part of his motivation to keep going with all this insanity.

Dr. Sebastian Ghislain is my favorite character in the comic who isn't a Triplet. He is a wealthy,completely self-centered, arrogant, womanizing drunk, who also happens to be a brilliant psychologist; picture Tony Stark at the beginning of Iron Man if he was a shrink and not a weapons designer. When we first meet him, he is about to bed a model, and his penchant for the ladies and his inability to say anything but exactly what he thinks at that moment gets him, and by extension his team, into a few problems over the course of the series. But he does actually seem to care about the Triplets, and wants to do right by them, even if it's right only in the way he thinks is right. Which cannot be said for Johann Blaq, Ghislain's former assistant, who faked his own death and spent years secretly perfecting the Triplet process so he could release the Triplets, who had been locked up after the project failed, and turn them into a cabal of mercenaries under his command. Blaq is the series' principle antagonist, and you can tell he's evil by his facial hair. Dude has seriously evil mustache/pointy beard combo.

The plot of the series starts off with the Triplets resurfacing, and Ghislain recruiting Duncan and Nix to help him try to solve the problem, getting back involved with the US government, and confronting Blaq. And when the new Triplet program gets its first government mission, well things just get worse. The book is full of crazy action, great characterization, and some really funny bits. Duncan and his three personalities bickering is hilarious, and many of the other Triplets have some pretty funny personalities, especially Steed's roadie. Ghislain is also funny in that, "I'm going to say exactly what I think and damn the consequences," way. I will warn those who are squeamish, the violence is pretty graphic, with body parts flying; when you've got katanas and viking axes as principal weapons, limbs and heads tend to roll.

Riley Rossmo, on of my favorite artists in comics, provided the art for the entire series. This was early in his career, after Proof but before Green Wake and Bedlam. Rossmo does wonderful things that add to the feel of the book and helps makes what could be a somewhat confusing concept work. Panels shift from one personality to the next as they converse, making it easy to keep straight who is talking. While there are some splash pages mixed in, most of them have quite a few panels, which allows for some really crazy page layouts, as well as a great sense of action. The designs for all the Triplets different personalities are also clever; Rossmo makes it easy to figure out exactly what each Triplet can do from simple visual cues, since in most cases the personality is only seen from chest up.

But I would be remiss in not pointing out that Rossmo is aided in this by letterer Clayton Cowles. Cowles designed specific shaped word bubbles for each Triplet personality with a specific symbol or object attached to it or passing through it, something that represents exactly who that personality is. It's a great conceit, helping differentiate who is speaking when multiple personalities are conversing in the same panel, and shows exactly how much a good letterer can help make a book work.

A couple more notes on style and form. The comic is in color, but not full color as used in most comics. Each page has usually a one color tone over it, designed by Rossmo. It makes the book look very stylish and unique. It was also one of the books Image used it's "Golden Age Format" meaning it's slightly off size from what you usually get, being slightly longer and wider than a standard comic, and has very few to no ads per issue. It was a really nice format, and it was a shame it didn't catch on. I would have liked to see more off-the-beaten-path projects use it.

Sadly, only ten issues of Cowboy Ninja Viking were published. Not only that, but issue ten ends with a page that has at the top, "Twelve Issues Later," so it felt like the creators had plenty more lined up. Hopefully, if the movie does come around, we'll get a return for Duncan and the rest, and some answers to the mysteries that ending left dangling. But, hanging plot lines or not, if you enjoy fun action and whacky characters, you should track down Cowboy Ninja Viking.

The ten issues of Cowboy Ninja Viking were collected into two trades or one deluxe hardcover. While all are currently out of stock on Amazon, the second trade is still in print, as is the hardcover, and are orderable through Diamond, so if your comic shop doesn't have it on the shelf, they should be able to get it for you.