Kyle Baker‘s You Are Here is a masterpiece of comedy, but as it’s by Baker that’s hardly a surprise.

I’d been meaning to do something on Baker’s comedy works for a long time, and one day I promise I will. His Cowboy Wally Story, Why I Hate Saturn and You Are Here are masterpieces of comedy in comic form. But until I do that, here’s a link to Brian Cronin at CBR who does a really great review/recap of the book and wonders why on earth it’s not in print. Here’s the blurb from the FPI webstore….

“Noel Coleman’s got it made. He has a successful career, a house in the country, and a wonderful girlfriend. He’s also been lying like crazy about his secret past. Until now. Within a day of returning to New York City to sell his apartment, Noel’s being chased by the cops and stalked by a serial Killer. To top it off, his unsupecting fiancee’s followed him to the city with a big suprise. Will he finally tell her the truth? And will either of them survive the experience?”

If that doesn’t sound packed with potential I think there may be something wrong with the comedy bit of your brain.

Go to CBR for more, but here’s a little of the art Cronin used… go read his review though, and marvel at how funny it is, then try your hardest to get hold of a copy.

Noel relaxing in a bath of tomato juice after a little encounter with a skunk….

…. and then we find out Helen’s Disney Princess-ish love of all the animals….

Noel heads back into New York, where no matter what he says, no-one believes he’s not out of prison…

And finally, Dreyfuss gets released from prison. That line “Hey Noel! That’s you!” combined with Noel’s perfect expression has me cracking up every single time…

I had a Shadow pic up here a while back by Rick Veitch. Well, the owner of said commission, Alan Henderson got in touch and we shared a love of The Shadow, his longstanding, mine really driven from the Andy Helfer writen, first Bill Sienkienvicz Sienkievicz, then Kyle Baker drawn series that came out in the late 80s (’87-89) and sadly, has never been reprinted.

But Alan pointed out he’d got lots of other Shadow art up at his Comic Art Fans Gallery and I was welcome to show as much as I wanted….. so here goes:

(Chris Weston commission)

(Michael Kaluta commission)

(Tim Keable commission – from the artist of on of my favourite Brit comics West, of which Alan has a fair few originals as well)

(David Hitchcock commission – David being the artist on Springheeled Jack and Gothic)

And there’s much, much more on there. So much so, I think I may be returning to this collection of great sketches very soon. It did strike me, as I was putting these up that, should I ever come into money, there’s honestly not that much I’d really go wild on. Maybe the Aston Martin I always wanted, nice holidays, but nothing too gauche and ostentatious. However, I would have a custom built library and gallery space, and in it would be a most beautiful set of commissions. Dreams, dreams, dreams. In the meantime, I’ll have to content myself with looking through other people’s wonderful collections.

Before we leave The Shadow though, here’s a few of my favourite pieces, from the sadly ended before it’s time Shadow series by Helfer, Sienkienvicz Sienkievicz and Baker:

(Shadow #1 Aug 87, written by Helfer, art by Sienkienvicz Sienkievicz)

(Couple of interior panels where Sienkienvicz Sienkievicz is at pains to point out the whole batshit crazy bit of The Shadow’s personality)

(And Kyle Baker does the same)

(Kyle Baker art from The Seven Deadly Fiins part 1; Seeing Red, Shadow #8)

Dear DC, I know I’ve said a few bad things about your comics recently, but I promise, if you’d give me a nice set of Andy Helfer’s run on The Shadow, I’ll be nice from now on. Please? Pretty please?

From the “Cup Of Joe” interview with Marvel Exec Ed Axel Alonso:

“And in October – drum roll, please — we’re launching “DeadpoolMAX,” by the creative team of David Lapham and Kyle Baker. For Immature Readers. We have a story to tell, and the only way to tell it is through MAX. Will it be sophomoric? Yes. Will it be fun? Yes. Will it be smart? Define smart.”

It’s Lapham and Baker. So expect wonderful writing and, give the cover above as an indicator, expect Baker’s art to be a little less sterile and computer generated than it has sadly been recently. And that makes it a definite one to pick up and get excited about.

There’s much more at Cooley’s blog, including some great gag panels, with a line and an eye for physical comedy that rather reminds me of Kyle Baker, such as these rather great driving gags:

(First seen on Superpunch)

Kyle Baker‘s I Die At Midnight was a slim 64 caper comic published at the turn of the millennium and coming as it did after the wonderful Cowboy Wally Show and the even more sublime Why I Hate Saturn (both criminally out of print) it was rather undervalued.

But it’s a fantastically funny manic rush through New York by a man trying to find the antidote to the bottle of pills he just taken following his breakup with his girlfriend. And wouldn’t you know it, she’s changed her mind and he has just a short time to race across New York with his girlfriend in tow, all the while desperately trying not to let on to what he’s doing. Hilarious slapstick all done in Baker’s intense, computerised style.

Well, now it’s all online for you to read. Enjoy:

There was always something magical about that format to me as a wee boy, different from all my other comics; so odd to look at one of these new Wednesday Comics (well, Day After Wednesday Comics in the UK as we get the US releases a day later), not having seen a comic in that format for so long; instant hotline to nostalgic memory… The actual comic itself may be short (well, it is designed to be like a pull-out section from a weekend newspaper, with weekly installments) but we were all rather intrigued by it here, it had the staff all peering at it and it certainly boasts some damned fine creative talent, including Mike Allred, Neil Gaiman, Kurt Busiek, Jimmy Palmiotti, Kyle Baker, Adam and Joe Kubert and Dave Gibbons.  One to have a look at as you persue this week’s new releases on the comics racks.