Comic Review: Nemo - Heart of Ice

    League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is right up there at the top of my list of favorite graphic novels.  It taps into all those things I love so much, the wide array of Victorian and pulp adventure fiction, from H.G. Welles, to Jules Verne, to Edgar Rice Burroughs, and beyond.  And of course, one of the coolest characters was Captain Nemo, master of the Nautilus, dashing, suave, and deadly.  With Nemo, we follow his daughter, haunted by his shadow and his deeds, as she tries to find her own path in life.

    In 1925, Princess Janni Dakkar, the new Nemo, lives as a brigand.  When she runs afoul of Aisha and Charles Foster Kane, a chase across the world begins.  She blazes a trail across Antarctica and all the strange wonders it hides, from Present Land to the Mountains of Madness.

    If you’ve read previous League universe books, you’ll know the drill.  It’s sad, dark, full of ugly twists on classic characters.  But it’s also thrilling and strange, and challenges the reader to figure out the reference.  I know there were several I didn’t get.  One of these days, I’m going to have to go back through the whole series with some annotations or something.  I know there’s stuff I’m missing, meaning I’m not catching.

    I’ve never been a huge fan of Kevin O’Neill’s art, but it gets the job done, and helps to set the whole uncomfortable vibe of Moore’s bent literature rollercoaster.  Moore is one of those writers I go back and forth on.  He’s written some of my favorite books, but he’s also written stuff I can’t even force my way through.  He seems like a colossal jackass, and possibly more in love with himself than his rabid fans are.  But he’s also good at capturing the magic of the classic fiction I love so much.  Heart of ice is surprisingly upbeat; still kind of a downer, but for this series, it’s relatively positive.  I could see this being a really nice companion series to the later stuff involving the League.

Nemo: Heart of Ice
Author: Alan Moore
Artist: Kevin O’Neill
Publisher: Top Shelf Productions
ISBN: 978-1-60309-274-6

-Matt

NEW LXG! Nemo - Heart of Ice

Well, here's a nice surprise.  Just months after finishing the third volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neal have announced an LXG spin-off one shot titled Nemo - Heart of Ice.  Check out the plot description below...

It’s 1925, fifteen long years since Janni Dakkar first tried to escape the legacy of her science-pirate father, only to eventually take on his mantle and accept her destiny as the new Nemo; the next captain of the legendary Nautilus. A thirty year-old Pirate Jenny, tired of punishing the world with an unending spree of plunder and destruction, is resolved to finally step from her forebear’s lengthy shadow by attempting something at which he’d conspicuously failed, namely the exploration of Antarctica. In 1895 her father had returned from that ice-crusted continent without his reason or his crewmen, all of whom appeared to have mysteriously perished or to otherwise have disappeared. Now Captain Nemo’s daughter and successor plans to take her feared and celebrated black submersible back to the world’s South Pole in an attempt to lay her sire’s intimidating ghost forever.

There are others, though, who have become as tired of Janni’s freebooting as she herself. An influential publishing tycoon, embarrassed by the theft of valuables belonging to a visiting Ugandan monarch, sets a trio of America’s most lauded technological adventurers on the pirate queen’s trail, commencing a nightmarish chase across the frozen landscape with the pinnacles of the forbidding mountains where Prince Dakkar’s sanity had foundered growing ever nearer…

In a fast-paced, self-contained adventure, Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill thrillingly expand on one of Century’s most memorable characters, venturing into dazzling polar territories and fictional domains including those of Edgar Allen Poe and H. P. Lovecraft, with all of these vectors headed for an unforgettable encounter at the living, beating and appallingly inhumanHEART OF ICE.

Hardcover, 48 pages, £9.99.
Due February 2013

At The Mountains of Madness meets Jules Verne by way of Alan Moore's sick, perverted brain.  Abso-freaking-lutely.  February can not get here quick enough.

--Brad

Dork Art: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 1996

Etsy artist Davinder Brar postulates his own League of Extraordinary Gentlemen from the magical year of 1996.  Sadly, Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neal's latest Century novel proves this to be just a fantasy, but I'd gladly read the adventures of Scully and Zach as they travel the time circuits of Bill & Ted.  And let's not forget the teachings of Sledge Hammer...

Unfortunately, the print measures a measly 11 x 17 and will set you back $50.  That doesn't quite work for me, bump up the size, drop the price a bit and I'll bite.  Until then, I'll just admire from afar.

--Brad

Dork Art: LXG Century Cover

Take a look at Kevin O'Neal's cover art for the upcoming collection of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - Century.  Looks like punk rock Mina is standing in a puddle of Oliver Haddo's Moon Child.  That's no good.  I really cannot stress enough how much I loved the conclusion of this third (we don't count Black Dossier as a volume, right?) entry in The League's saga.  The final celestial confrontation kinda broke my mind.  Sooooooo good.

--Brad

Dork Art: 30 Rock's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Here is some beautiful madness from the brain of comic artist Dave Johnson.  The cast of 30 Rock done up as Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neal's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  I've never watched the show but even I can recognize this mash up as utter genius.  Bravo, sir.

--Brad