Comico Collection (1987) by lots of people,
Grendel: Devil’s Vagary (1987) by Matt Wagner and Dean Motter
So what’s this then?
Comico didn’t do many special-format things, but to celebrate the first five years (and possibly to try to get rid of overstock), they did this thing.
It’s a box made from cardboard, I guess, but it feels kinda luxe. And the design on the … back? is in silver. (The front is blank.)
So here’s what you get.
Ten different comics — I guess it’s one each from every majorish series they had? The oldest book is an issue of the short-lived Evangeline series, so there’s nothing here from early the black and white period.
There’s a quite big poster included — it was folded and then wrapped around the comics.
An issue of the Comico flyer.
And then the main attraction, a brand-new sixteen page Grendel story: “Devil’s Vagary”.
All that for just $10! But I guess people would buy this for the Grendel story only, so it’s a pretty expensive Grendel story.
Which I’m now going to read.
Err… Well, this is very stylish, but it was drawn by Dean Motter, so I didn’t really expect anything else. But it’s rather confusing — is Grendel just watching and thinking things, or is he speaking with these people? Why do some speech bubbles have tails and some don’t?
It looks even sillier on subsequent pages where it’s indeed clear that Grendel’s speech bubbles are tail-less and in red, while the other guy’s bubbles have tails and are in white.
This is kinda interesting — I mean, the red/black on red panels. Has it been done by printing red over black ink? Or does it use two hues of red? Dean Motter had a design studio, so it’s not surprising that he’d come up with something special. The book feels like a Vortex book design-wise: Printed on glossy paper, and “self-covered”; i.e., the cover is the same stock as the interiors, and Motter was the art director for Vortex, so I guess that makes sense.
The story, though… The story is about Grendel having kidnapped a woman to, er, do something, and we get their conversation…
And then… er… Argent foiled Grendel’s evil plan, so Grendel just killed his hostage? THE END
That’s not a story — it’s not even a vignette. It looked pretty nice, but, man…
You can still find copies of this easily…
According to this, this book has never been reprinted.
Amazing Heroes Preview Special #11, page #7:
I have another series in the works. It’s
been in the works forever becaused of
Comico’s wildly fluctuating business state.
It’s never been able to solidify. It’s called
Grendel Logs and it’ll be black, white and
red like the thing I did with Dean Motter
[in “Devil’s Vagary”]. All untold tales of
Hunter Rose; all written by me and drawn
by about two dozen different artists,
already selected and pretty much booked.
just waiting for the Comico boat to stop
rocking and find its direction.
Back Issue #125, page #28:
POWERS: Continuing with the subject of you
periodically revisiting the Hunter Rose era, why is
the black-white-and-red palette appropriate for
depicting his stories? I noticed that this minimalist
coloring approach started with the Dean Motter-
illustrated Grendel: “Devil’s Vagary” 16-page
comic for the Comico Collection (1987) and that
Chris Pitzer recolored Devil by the Deed in this
fashion for the story in 2007.
WAGNER: It just seems to fit Hunter’s milieu, even
though I came to that realization later in the game.
It was only after the first B, W, &R series that I decided
to make that palette consistent for all of Hunter’s
solo adventures. The black-and-white evokes the
style and atmosphere of film noir while the red
accents the blood-and-roses motifs that are such a
major element of Hunter’s visualization. It was after I
decided to go this route that we went back to press
with DbtD and had Chris Pitzer give it the same
treatment. That marked the third time that DbtD had
been recolored (the first time, by me, and the second
time, by Bernie Mireault). I like all of those versions but
was happy that the newest version fits so nicely into
the B, W, & R reality.
As you’d expect, there aren’t many reviews of this book. Here’s one:
Going back woth Eddie on this story was a hit Taking another look at the morality (or lack of) that guided Eddie as Grendel is always a delight
Oh, comics.org was wrong about it not being reprinted:
Comments: This issue introduces quite a few firsts. This is the first Grendel piece that was penciled by someone else, with Dean Motter handling the artwork. Matt Wagner wrote the issue. This is also the first time we get a good look at Grendel’s crime syndicate, including where they meet and how they conduct business, which I found very interesting. Motter’s art is decent, not on Wagner’s level but is effective especially in the battle scenes. And lastly, this is the first black, white and red Grendel story ever published. It used to be quite rare, but has since been reprinted in Grendel: Black, White, and Red as well as the Hunter Rose Omnibus.