Nächst!

One of the best comics out this week was Fantastic Comics #24. Man, was this book running late – Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch have nothing on Larsen and Co. Let’s see… Fantastic Comics #23 was published in… well, the Grand Comics Database isn’t loading right now, so lets just say 60-odd years ago. (UPDATE: It's working again... and it's 1941.) So publisher Erik Larsen should really have gotten his star-studded lineup of artists – Mike Allred, Tom Scioli, Fred Hembeck, Bill Sienkiewicz, Ashley Wood, Tom Yeates – to put down the friggin’ X-Box already. The last issue was finished in the days of radio dramas, so there’s really no excuse.

Actually, Fantastic Comics #24 is the first of Image Comics’ Next Issue Project, in which modern comic creators create the next issue of old, discontinued Golden Age comics, public-domain characters and all. And it’s fantastic. There’s something to recommend every story, whether it’s the satirical energy of Larsen’s Samson, the more modern takes on Flip Falcon and Yank Wilson, or the more old-fashioned (with a wink) Captain Kidd and Golden Knight stories. But the final tale…well, it kind of plagued me. Because it’s mostly in German.

Ashley Wood’s Sub Saunders story begins with our hero tied up in a chair, being interrogated by a Nazi. I guess. Like I said, it’s mostly in German, and I don’t speak a lot of that. So, I thought, Free Translation to the rescue. Here are the German parts of the script, translated by a computer, for your amusement and edification. I’ve added some parenthetical notes as to what I think the translation might mean. But for the most part, your guess is as good as mine.

Page 1: Saunders, have free it the seas of a gef hrlichen (?) madman! The world is grateful! (“Saunders, you have freed the seas…?”)

Page 2: Miss beautiful, enough for today…

Page 3: Ahhh... through they push think become so-called India texts I disconcerted, confuses etc.

Ask Saunders, its believe used becomes in the music, and openly ber (?) a boring.

Be in that they guessing not are do rather perplexed, why in that this, aware Saunders? Has, is it the law... (Is this a reference to “possession is nine-tenths of the law”? Or should the German read Hass instead of Hat – making it “Hate, it is the law.”?)

Page 4: Miss beautiful, ask further.

Gone your father the kontrole and the protection out is, what he demands? Ahh Karl or such, its dear was not are strong gender.

Naturally, I cannot leave it guilt for that it behind, they are nothing other as a flat copy.

I have would end it the favor Saunders with this, a tragic. Something where it nothing at all.

Page 5: Miss beautiful, the time for us to that would end speak ours Saunders.

No no are not anxious, have we much more to inform sign, that would end.

No longer phallisch (“phallic”?) u-booted (“U-Boats”?) and high lake adventure for it.

How very boringly Saunders, die!

Riiiiiight…

And then, at the end of the book, Wood has a parody of his claim to fame, Automatic Kafka – a character named “Automated Keats” – walk on and make some declarations. I can’t say I was impressed, or found it all that funny. Or comprehensible. (Some of that is certainly the limitations of the Free Translation program, but without it, I'd be even more in the dark.) But that’s okay – while I doubt I’d ever buy a comic Wood wrote ever again (unless it was preceded by 58 pages of awesome, like this one is), if there’s ever a book that he just letters? I am so there. Check out that sound-effect design. This is the best artist-generated lettering since Dave Sim’s stuff.

Anyway, I don’t want to end on a bad note. I’m incredibly happy with this comic overall. It has a ton of variety and fun, in a beautiful, oversize 64-page package for $5.99. There’s a lot to recommend here – and I can’t wait for the next one (Crack Comics #63!).

Rob