Dial H #12

"Conference Call"
written by China Miéville
pencils by Alberto Ponticelli
inks by Dan Green

First of all, welcome back Open-Window Man!  Fellow of Boy Chimney, member of Team House, defender against Rake Dragon!

In the words of Nelson Jent, "Seriously, what just happened?!"  Dial H has officially kicked its story into high gear.  Under siege from the Fixer and the Centipede—the Fixer's gopher, even though he imagines himself to be the Fixer's partner—Nelson and Roxie are forced to defend their H- and S-Dials in the helter-skelter of a manic attack and a bewildering rescue.  "Conference Call" is compact, swiftly paced, and initially disorienting, but it recovers its focus after "W. T. Flash?" and propels its characters straight into the Exchange.

Dial H #12's action sequences are a little difficult to follow.  The Centipede, by virtue of his superpower, is everywhere simultaneously, confusing the reader as much as the protagonists.  The Fixer keeps transforming into different hero-shapes:  among others, a zebra-centaur, a miner, a radar screen, an alien-faced cowboy riding a bullet, a surgeon, and a large, muscled, red dude, whom a bowling-hatted Yaaba (presumably, superhero Franz Kafka himself) distracts with—I kid you not—odradeks, Kafka's enigmatic creatures with as many interpretations as literary critics from his short story "Die Sorge des Hausvaters" ("The Cares of a Family Man").  The Fixer's distraught and plaintive response, "BUT - WHAT - DOES - IT - MEAN?", is therefore as justifiable as it is hilarious!  Characters keep jumping through or shoring up portals.  And we're casually introduced to a new Dial—the G-Dial for Gear (4-3-2-7, I assume)—and a host of new characters, mostly Dialers, with strange names and continually changing shapes.

Although Nelson's much-desired explanation isn't given here, I think we've just met the insurgency.  If the Fixer is the monitor and enforcer of the Exchange, this bunch seems to have followed in the footsteps of the mysterious "O," finding and rescuing Dialers and Dials from the Fixer.  They are Bansa, blue and four-armed; Unbled, keeping the Canadians from breaking through the door as Caryatid; odradek-hurling Yaaba; Ejad, who seems to man the controls; Dwan, whose autodial is glitchy; Nem, grey with a mohawk ponytail and in charge of the G-Dial; and a nameless dialer, currently wearing a bucket on his head and carrying a plastic shovel as Captain Sand.  Interestingly, they have the cooperation of Open-Window Man, an unusual but apparently legitimate hero in his own right, one eligible to be dialed up.

Amid all the madness and peril Nelson and Roxie seem to salvage their friendship after their night together, despite Nelson's continued deflections of Roxie's attempts to talk it through like adults.  However much befriending Roxie and being a hero has improved his outlook, including getting him back in the gym and apparently off of cigarettes, Nelson still has considerably low self-worth.  It perhaps doesn't help that Ponticelli continues to struggle drawing Nelson and Roxie.  Nelson's weight fluctuates by the panel, as does his frame and definition, so that sometimes he's little more than a shapeless blob, sometimes (and preferably) you can see the muscled former boxer underneath.  Similarly, Roxie's age is all over the place.  Dial H is not a beautiful book in any standard way, nor should it be, but a little more visual consistency for its main characters would be nice.

Superheroes:  Open-Window Man (as himself), Rustwork (and the rest of the Junkyard Posse), Franz Kafka, Caryatid, Magman, Captain Sand

Sidekicks:  Clinch

[July 2013]