Chris Roberson

This is just great. With Northlanders, Scalped and DMZ all winding to a close, you always start to worry about Vertigo as an imprint without a few successful new titles on the go. Unwritten is doing well, and I really, really want iZombie to do well, too. Set mostly in and around a graveyard in Eugene, Oregon, our heroine is Gwen, a gravedigger and zombie, who is forced to dig up the freshly dead to eat their brains or risk losing her memory and turning into a shambling mindless monster. Her show more best friend is a ghost, her other friend is a were-terrier. Elsewhere, a coven of vampires is running a paint-ball game and a pair of monster-hunters are in town, hunting for monsters. Gwen's latest meal comes with an unpleasant set of memories: namely the murder of the deceased. To calm the dead she promises to track down the killer, but quickly discovers that nothing is as it seems.

Okay, remember Buffy? Remember how cool Buffy was, with her adorable friends and her heavy burden and complicated plots and clever stories? Well, iZombie is nothing like Buffy other than the obvious supernatural stuff. But it's got a vibe to it that fans of Buffy will recognise and appreciate. Strong female characters. Witty script. Dodgy romance. A weird world that promises to get weirder. Mike Allred's beautiful, distinctive pop-art. laura Allred's colours - seriously, lovely colours on a Vertigo book. It's like a goddamn miracle.

It's also, last but not least, a surprisingly fresh take on zombies. Who knew there was still meat on those bones? No? Um. Bringing a dead genre back to shambling life! Better? No? Okay, try: this zombie has beauty as well as braaaains! Oh, feck off. Write your own stupid damn pun. You think this is easy? Huh? Well it ain't. Can't get any apreciation around here, I swear. show less

The Fables universe has long been one of my favorite continuing comic stories. The depth and breadth of the characters, the fantastic storylines, and the imagery is absolutely fantastic. And then I heard about this spin off of Cinderella into her own short little series and I was hesitant. It wasn’t Bill Willingham writing it...would it be good? Needless to say my fears were unfounded as Chris Roberson creates a fantastic story for Cinderella, Fabletown’s ultimate spy. The story is well show more written and the art is fantastic. So hang on for an adventure with a spy.

When artifacts from the Homelands start surfacing in the modern world only one fable can find out what’s going on. Cinderella, Fabletown’s top secret spy and their best dressed agent. But she may not be the only agent on the case. And there are rumors...dark rumors of a powerful magical force lurking about in surprise. So not only does Cindy have to go out and find out what’s going on before Fabletown is exposed, she also has to worry about Crispin and her shoe store! Seems that he thinks he should run things. What’s a girl to do? Kick butt, take no prisoners, and save the world of course.

Just like the regular series I love that the characters are turned on their head a bit. While Bill created the character of Cindy as super spy, Chris’s story has really brought her to life. He gives her a backstory, letting readers see the amount of depth that the character really has. The story itself is well told super spy story, ala James Bondish...except I think Cindy is a much better spy than James Bond. I mean after all who would expect a simple shoe store owner to be able to kick that much butt? I’m sure Bill signed off on what Chris was planning (Bill does have to keep writing the Fables universe after all), but Chris adds some really nice twists and turns in this story making use of some classic Fables misconceptions. I also really like the addition of (minor spoiler) Aladdin as a foil for Cindy to play off of. The one downside to the story...the Crispin aspect. I’d have prefered to see that as a separate story almost than one mixed in with what Cindy is up to. It just interrupts the flow of the rest of the story a bit.

The artwork is classic Fables capturing the characters in all of the style and elegance they deserve. Shawn draws a number of action sequences in this collection, with Cindy kicking butt seemingly every other page and the details that he gives to the characters are absolutely perfect. Hair flying in the breeze, skirts/dresses billowing out, and I can believe that the characters are really fighting. I also really enjoyed the depiction of Aladdin’s all powerful genie. Its only one panel, but its a fantastic image. The one weak point of the artwork, for me at least, are the depictions of the animal characters. They just appear too cartoony next to the human characters, the Marquis De Carabas in particular. It’s just a bit jarring. Luckily they don’t show up that much in the collection. I also want to make mention of Chrissie Zullo’s covers for the series. I love her art style that captures Cindy as almost vulnerable, but an edge of hardness. She really plays up the James Bond aspect of Cindy.

I really enjoyed this collection and it’s a great addition to the Fables Universe and I can’t wait to see what the next volume is like. I recommend this collection to and fan of Fables and if you haven’t read Fables yet (why the heck not?) this is pretty good introduction to the series. show less

Pop culture has been in zombie/vampire/werewolf overdrive the past few years, and it’s pretty rare to find a story that has a unique twist on the mythos. iZombie, an ongoing series from Vertigo by Chris Roberson and Michael Allred, isn’t the savior of the genre, but it does at least have a few original twists on some tired old archetypes.

iZombie tells the story of Gwen Dylan, an undead gravedigger who has to eat brains once a month to keep from becoming a full-on shambling zombie horror. show more She doesn’t enjoy the taste at all, describing them as worse than “a cross between motor oil and someone else’s vomit”, but eating them keeps her sane and relatively normal, so she digs up the freshest grave once a month and does what she feels is necessary. One unfortunate side effect of brain-eating is that the memories of the deceased come along for the ride, and she finds herself compelled to finish their unfinished business. When the story opens, she eats the brains of a man who may have been murdered, and sets out to solve the mystery.

Gwen’s only friends are Ellie, a ghost-girl who died forty years ago and dresses like one of Austin Powers’ backup dancers, and Scott (aka ‘Spot’), who turns into a “were-terrier” during the full moon, which mostly just means he becomes embarrassingly hirsute. They live in a version of Eugene, Oregon overflowing with supernatural beings; the paintball place down the road is run by a coven of vampires that look like former sorority girls, and a mysteriously menacing man wrapped in bandages may be an ancient Egyptian mummy. Naturally, there are also monster hunters thrown into the mix, one of whom becomes a possible love interest for Gwen, which will surely lead to further complications down the line.

The art, done by the inimitable Michael Allred, is gorgeous, full of thick black lines and his signature Madman style. One particularly impressive spread in the middle of the book shows Gwen walking through the memories of another character. The memories are shown as individual panels in the comic, but are printed in an exaggerated halftone. Gwen seems to exist above the panels, standing between or on top of each individual memory. Allred’s art is easily my favorite part of this book.

The story is good, but mostly setup. The mystery established at the start doesn’t amount to very much, and many of the plot threads in this initial volume are not resolved. However, the explanation of the overal supernatural mythos is thoughtful, and most of the creatures are given an interesting twist. Only the vampires seem particularly cliche – too-beautiful women preying on lonely men. I think there’s potential here, however; Roberson establishes enough interesting threads that I look forward to reading future volumes. show less

Chris Roberson’s Celestial Empire stories are distinctive and compelling in a crowded marketplace. Set in a reality where China’s 15th century treasure fleets weren’t dismantled, but instead expanded Imperial Chinese power across the globe, the resulting stories have a decidedly solid foundation that come off as otherworldly rather than contrived. Roberson has exploited this milieu exceptionally well, setting his various short stories and novels in different eras to keep the narrative show more and cast of character fresh.

In The Dragon’s Nine Sons, Roberson produces a full-blown science fictional adventure dependent on none of the traditional sleight-of-hand that sometimes mars lesser alternate history. And indeed, this isn’t alternate history at all, but rather an alternate future set in a time equivalent to our year 2052. China has expanded to become a world-spanning super power, challenged only by the vicious Mexic Dominion, a powerful Central American nation descended from the Aztec Empire. Both powers have pushed their rivalry beyond the boundaries of Earth. China has made the colonization and terraforming of Mars--known as Fire Star--a priority, while the Mexic fight a bloody war of attrition with warships striking from a secret asteroid base with an orbit that closely tracks the planet’s.

Enter the titular nine sons. In a classic Dirty Dozen setup, each former member of the Chinese military has been sentenced to death for some mortal infraction or other. Such sins will be forgiven and death sentences rescinded, however, if they accept a mission that is certain suicide--to fly a captured warship into the heavily-defended Mexic base and detonate a nuclear warhead at the heart of the asteroid.

Roberson’s world building is excellent. His writing is tight and focused, the various characters’ back stories deftly intertwined with that of each other and the larger plot in general. The biggest complaint is that Roberson repeatedly deflates the escalating tension of infiltration or combat by interrupting the narrative for extended flashbacks explaining how a particular character reached this particular point. show less