Future Dreams Books

WATCHDOGS LEGION—“Get organized to energize”
Script: Sylvain Runberg
Artist: Gabriel Germain
Behemoth 2025

Terry Hammond
June 24, 2025

DROP ALL FANTASY and reality looks scarier. Life in Great Britain is apparently not so great these days, according to a new series WATCHDOGS LEGION, portraying something like present times there, here, and perhaps like most of the rest of the staggering capitalist world in many languages, burgeoning with quarrels.

A tent town. Refugees. Volunteers serve food and necessities. An undercover reporter is on the scene; and a female ex-soldier, and a female ex-something else, in between, each wanting to know who you are, and why you choose to be here. They have a confrontation with a hooligan gang with bats and chains,; then a confrontation with armored security guards. Not sure who is more dangerous: either of them, or us, as we begin to take shape as an “us” with a purpose. Nefarious machinations lurk in the background on all sides.

How plain people can make a difference, without costumes and superpowers appears to be the theme here. The first story cycle is titled “London Calling”: with a wall art tag “We Shall Never Surrender.“ They say the city has become a symbol of oppression, and only its people can free it.

Scripting by Sylvain Runberg sounds normal, quotidian, staged to introduce the main characters and the signs of the times bit by bit in plain conversations. Art by Gabriel Germain is ultra-fine, in details and painted colors shifting in the light.

The ugly aspect under the surface is not always apparent. Most things look like the easy bustling city life we share in our own hometown and neighborhoods. A big music rave is going to happen with a big star. For free. Some people just like to give it away. Make the world glow.

Others, as we begin to see, like to take it away, more and more. The time comes to even the score.

SOLOMON KANE—“Perishables on a lee shore”
Writer, Artist, Colorist: Patrick Zircher
Titan 2025

Terry Hammond
May 11, 2025

A DARKENED SHORE in deep Africa, where none have gone before and lived to return: this is where we begin a new series for adventurer SOLOMON KANE, in “The Serpent Ring.” The popularized Robert E. Howard character, an English Puritan warrior in the 1600s, jumps back to life without hesitation in this solo work by writer, artist, colorist Patrick Zircher, fully geared, and exquisitely lined and colored. No guessing on this one.

Five hundred years ago, the Portuguese, perched at the end of the world, learned to reach African shores in the south Atlantic Ocean with a new kind of sailing ship that could brave the winds and currents, and ride the long lee shore, which had previously driven all sailors before them hopelessly out to sea. World currents of trade and plunder had never before reached these places on the sub-Saharan continent. Hardened by generations of holy war against so-called infidels in their own lands, the Portuguese came to Africa, and other places farther east around the Horn, only to plunder. It’s all they knew. They became hateful even to other Europeans for their rapacity.

Righteous Englishman Solomon Kane, dressed like a classic broad-brimmed, black-caped Puritan, brandishing rapier and flintlock pistol, feels of two minds bombarding and boarding a Portuguese caravel near Gibraltar to punish the evil dogs. Popish Catholics at the time were considered to be Satan’s stepchildren to be abolished, in whatever terms that might be achieved, and Portuguese Catholics more than most for their excessive deviltry: yet lunging across the wrecked and bloody deck to join the slaughter, Solomon Kane has to wonder if slaughter is really the right Christian response to unrighteousness.

Then he kills an innocent man: the man who barely escaped that dark African shore, with hurled spears claiming most of his companions, and he alone with a precious prize wrapped in a bundle: take it: and Solomon Kane vows to take it, whatever it is, to its intended destination in Venice. The innocent man dies. Our prayerful hero is determined to undertake the mission, for he knows, one cannot renegotiate a contract with the dead. Honor simply has to be fulfilled.

So starts adventures eastward, into the heart of Europe, and a commitment to go there to deliver a mysterious package. The mystery is given clues along the way, moving from lustrous and charming Venice, to jungle-shored Africa, and other places, and the dangerous roads and seas in between, connecting and dividing them. Few dare travel even a short distance from their home in any of the places.

Solomon Kane dares travel anywhere he needs to go. Please Lord, help me do right. First, survive to keep doing right, of course. So many things must perish.

This seems to be what Solomon Kane is trying to say, and what he struggles over, life and death coiling together irreconcilably once again. He is not the peace-loving Quaker-type of Puritan, though he dresses the same. He faces death and violence like natural facts, at least in the places he goes.

Making him a role model in any way seems a little disturbing; yet he possesses a moral compass with a swinging dial, talking to god or an intermediary to god, however one does it exactly, intercession via a merciful mom or son, or saint: he prays. By Crom, he prays. He trusts in god. In whatever clothes, this looks like good news. In god we trust.

Solomon Kane might be a saint someday, but not today. Too much to do, and too much turmoil along the way.

JUNGLE COMICS—“Bring back bananas”
Writer: Chuck Dixon, et al.
Artists: Various
Antarctic Press 2019

Terry Hammond
April 12, 2025

The word was once a great triumph: yet now pettified by overuse. World rainforests and jungles were also once a great triumph, yet now also pettified by overuse. Everyone wants a piece.

In the new series of jungle stories portrayed in JUNGLE COMICS—up to thirty curious issues so far—it looks like the jungle is winning. Giant reptiles with big teeth, on land, air, and water, and smart monkeys and telepathic spiders, help keep humans in check. Bad guys and good guys are all tasty. Each anthology story carries an odd touch of comedy, not quite parody of the original golden-age Jungle Comics—just barely outside the groove, with odd twists that let you know you are somewhere else now.

Writer Chuck Dixon lured me here. For decades he has been a reliable guide into savage lands of all sorts. He pays off in the jungle.

The style of almost-authentic, slightly weird storytelling carries into the art, especially in the first-issue feature by Kelsey Shannon, where comical facial expressions somewhere every few pages, predict coming unlikely developments. Sharp detail and moody colors blend brilliantly into a lush jungle atmosphere, deep inside a living space.

You marvel. You start to laugh. Then something eats you.

No need to stay alert. It’s going to happen anyway. Just do it. Let the jungle win for once.

HENDRIX ELECTRIC REQUIEM—“Little Wing”
Writer: Mattia Colombara
Artist: Gianluca Maconi

Terry Hammond
March 11, 2025

HEY MAN … I don’t want to stomp on your vibe. You have him on right now? Hold that.

HENDRIX ELECTRIC REQUIEM, a sleek hardcover bio-graphic of the famous musician by Mattia Colombara and Gianluca Maconi, wants you right there, until the sound melts into your bones. Move over, let Jimi take over. When angel wings fly you home, you want to say, I saw the light.

Psychedelic rock, like abstract modern art, works best close to the ground, floating and ripping the edge between solid substance and swift currents, interweaving dimensions, spooning. This version of Jimi’s life skims this border brilliantly in both story and art, touching down, and flaming up again to feel the passion, the dreams, always there, always moving, never quite knowing itself until it reaches that final tongue stretching out, all fundamental sources and influences burned away to become, just that tongue. And gone.

Falling into a long tradition, like music, or words, shaping it into your own voice, is no mere personal accomplishment. Clearly, Jimi Hendrix and his generation were on a mission to blow your mind. Think outside this miserable box we put ourselves in. Youth took tools from the past and reshaped what to do with them, to rethink everything.

This larger drama runs alongside the private life, and penetrates the soul. In Jimi’s case, as most artists no doubt, struggling to find a genuine personal voice to speak, tightly corresponds with finding exactly that thing you want to say.

Was it an old bluesy mentor who told young Jimi about music, and its long chains, or was it his alter‑ego remarking on his own future?

“She will feed on your hopes and feelings. She will be a cruel lover, but also the only love you’ll be able to fully experience.”

One interesting scene in a British pub, Jimi and pal were thrown out, their kind not allowed. Jimi blew a fuse thinking this was another dose of racism like he experienced working in the American South, shocking to him after his cozier upbringing in Seattle, in the Pacific Northwest. It turned out, the circus regularly came to town, and the sign on the pub window, said, “No Clowns Allowed.” Mod hippie gear at the time was pretty clownish.

Near the end, when he finally gets where he is going, Jimi stands up and dusts himself off.

“Oh cool, those stupid clothes are gone.”