COMICS: Colonia: On Into the Great Lands

A belated Yay! to Mike Sterling, who yesterday celebrated his blog's second anniversary. I knew him back when. Hey, I know him right now, too! And Boo! to Blogspot, which was out of service for much of last night, which is why my congrats to Mike is a day late.


Also, an overdue Boo! to blo.gs, which is down for, what, the 17th week in a row? Every day I think that blo.gs must have reached its capacity for sucking ass by now, and every day I discover that blo.gs knows no limitation to the amount of ass it is capable of sucking.

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I picked up the second trade paperback of Jeff Nicholson's wonderful Colonia series last week, and found it to be every bit as enjoyable as I did the first one. It's an all-ages fantasy/comedy/adventure series in which our young hero Jack and his two uncles find themselves mysteriously transported into an alternate timeline, in which America is called Colonia, and creatures of legend are all too real.

After island-hopping through book one, in book two, On Into the Great Lands, Jack, his uncles, his new friend Kelsey, and their pirate captors-turned-partners travel through the wilds of untamed Florida, discovering along the way the Fountain of Youth, lawn-bowling dwarves, Rip Van Winkle, a shapeshifting mule, a bartending mermaid, and young Sally, who exhibits the same reality-shifting powers Jack seems to unknowingly possess. It's all told with great humor, intelligence, and inventiveness. The characters are all appealing (even the weaselly pirate Cinnabar has his egotistical charms), and the mysteries of this other world are intriguing, sometimes delightful, sometimes dark and dangerous. I can't wait for more.

Unfortunately, it appears I will have to wait, and perhaps for quite a while. In his introduction to the book, Nicholson says that, thanks to people like me, who are KILLING THE COMIC BOOK INDUSTRY by waiting for the trade rather than buying the individual issues, he will cease publishing Colonia in pamphlet form, and wait until he has enough material to put out a third paperback instead. (Only he didn't say it all mean and bitter like that.) Considering it took him about six years to publish 11 regular issues, that might be a while. Too bad -- but it's more than worth waiting for. Colonia is great fun. Check it out!