And now you find yourself in '82; the disco hot spots hold no charm for you

Here's a couple recent reviews from the prestigious Booklist:

Wood, Brian and G, Rob. Couriers 02: Dirtbike Manifesto. 2004. 88p. illus. AiT/Planet Lar; dist. by Diamond, paper, $12.95 (1-932051-18-X). 741.5.
The Couriers, whose second graphic-novel adventure this is, are young urban mercenaries ("yummies"?) Moustafa and Special (a female), who deliver stuff you just can’t give to any bike messenger––drugs, weapons, various kinds of payoff––because bike messengers are gonna freak when the recipients pull heat on ’em and say they’ll keep delivery and payment or return merchandise, so to speak, and oh, yeah, you (the messenger) won’t be going to the next client––ever. This scenario unfolds early here, but Moustafa, Special, and Ryan handle it perfectly, with bullets and big-ass four-wheel-drive pickups. ’Cept Ryan gets killed. Tracing the killers to redneck territory upstate (New York), our two lethal slick city-zens head north. Mostly chasing and fighting (with guns, knives, fists, whatever), this opus might be fairly boring as a movie but is pretty impressive here, thanks to Rob G’s way––in black and white, yet––with smeared lines for speed, glowing light effects, and cloud, mist, and dust effects that give a subtle 3-D look whenever he uses them. ––Ray Olson
YA/M: Teens will like the young heroes; plenty of violence, but no sex.

Young, Larry and McKinney, Brandon. Planet of the Capes. 2004. 80p. illus. AiT/Planet Lar; dist. by Diamond, paper, $12.95 (1-932051-20-1). 741.5.
Everybody knows there are no superheroes in this world. But why assume that this is the only world? Physics seems to smile, however thinly, on the notion of parallel universes, and writers have always re-ordered reality as they pleased, or there wouldn’t be superhero stories at all. Dan Jolley and Tony Harris did a bang-up job with a world in which superheroes exist in The Liberty Files [BKL My 15 04], and Young and McKinney also entertain by first offering a superhero-sodden existence much like this reality––for instance, complete with celebrity-autograph hounds who aren’t above the pretense of being in trouble to attract overly serious, caped crime fighters––and then tossing superpowered analogs of Superman, Batman, the Hulk, and, perhaps, Alan Moore’s Promethea into this world, where they don’t all behave well. Cast mostly in the virtuosic black-and-white that is AiT/Planet Lar’s house distinction, with a central flashback in color à la 1950s comic books, this amusing caper zips along so quickly that it seems more graphic novella than -novel. ––Ray Olson