In Review: Pandora's Box - Sloth

As we all slowly recover from the excesses of Christmas it seems an appropriate time to be looking at Cinebook's latest offering from their Pandora's Box series, Sloth.

American Olympic sprinter Paris Troy has been the fastest man in the world over 100 metres since the Istanbul Olympics almost 10 years ago but an injury has left his record vulnerable to the younger sprinter Ace Achean. However the rivalry between the two men goes deeper since Achean's supermodel girlfriend Helen had left him for Paris. With Achean closing in on his record and with his recovery from injury not happening as quickly as he would like, Paris' brother Hector, a former sprinter who is a convicted drugs cheat, suggests he meet with a doctor who is prepared to prescribe something that will help him. Is Paris prepared to use the slothful way of cheating to return to his world beating fitness?

The Pandora's Box series from Cinebook is a set of eight books all written by the same author, Alcante, with seven different artists covering each of the seven deadly sins plus an eighth book, Hope, with art from the artist for the first book as a finale. Sloth is the second book in the series with art by Vujadin Radovanovic which was originally published in French by Dupuis in 2005 as Pandora Box 2: La Paresse.

As the names of the characters suggest, Alcante uses classical mythology as the basis for his characters - Paris stole away the beautiful Helen from the King of Sparta starting the 10 year siege of the city of Troy which ended with the deception of the Trojan Horse - while setting his story in the modern day. While not a plot point, the Trojan Horse itself does make an appearance as a tourist attraction in Istanbul, the best known Turkish city close to the modern day ruins of the city of Troy. While the book's characters are not quite faithful to those from the Trojan War, Helen is barely mentioned for instance, those readers with a classical education will be intrigued as to who Alcante introduces next in the plot and will also get a good indication of the climax of the story when they see that the doctor willing to prescribe the doping drugs to Paris is called Philoctetes.

Radovanovic's art is adequate for the job but doesn't sparkle and while Alcante's plotting is interesting, as he interweaves his story with the Trojan myth, his characters are ultimately unsympathetic and in the end I was left disinterested as to whether Paris decides to take the drugs or not. Indeed the last couple of pages of seemingly tacked on epilogue just appear to push the drugs message too far. Of course since the Pandora's Box series is individual and unconnected stories with different artists this doesn't mean that the next title, Gluttony, due in February 2010 can fully be judged on the basis of this one.

Pandora's Box is an interesting idea that Sloth just doesn't quite pull off.

There are more details of Pandora's Box: Sloth on the Cinebook website.

There are more details about the original publications of Pandora's Box on the Dupuis Pandora Box website.

Merry Christmas

Well hopefully Santa arrived at your house last night and didn't look too much like this.

New Eagle's most popular character was of course Dan Dare but its most popular new character was Doomlord.
The alien Doomlord Vek from the planet Nox created and written by Alan Grant was originally an evil character out to destroy the Earth but eventually became its protector. It this issue he takes on the disguise of Santa to hide from the Deathlords of Nox who are on Earth to kill him.


The issue also included Dan Dare fighting for his life on the planet Belendotor, cop One Eyed Jack fighting for his life on the streets of New York and heavyweight boxer Danny Pike fighting in a European Championship eliminator in Madrid.

Christmas was also a theme in the issue's Amstor Computer story. The Amstor Computer stories were one off stories based on suggestions sent in by readers and "A Modern Christmas..." was suggested by Daniel Stockman of Middlesex. Artist Ron Turner shows that even Father Christmas needs a little help from modern technology.


And so we leave our Christmas covers for yet another year and but not before we take the time to wish all our readers a Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas: 1 Day To Go

Our run of Christmas covers continue as we countdown to Christmas Day.

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a good Look and Learn Santa cover and this one comes from issue 728 in 1975.

With Santa speeding over the snow on a snowmobile it is advertising the Speed and Power article "Skimming Over The Snow When It's Forty Below" which highlights snowmobiles, Sno-Cat tractors, the unpowered Sno-Bob as well as of course husky powered sleighs. The rest of the issue pretty much ignores Christmas with articles on General Montgomery's double, Clifton James, how a telephone works and the mud left behind when the Nile floods. The comic strips were the B&W Oliver Twist and of course More Adventures Of The Trigan Empire in full Don Laurence colour.

The following year, for issue 780, it was less 20th Century Santa and more a case of 21st Century Santa as Gerry Wood painted this amusing image of Santa on the surface of Mars. For someone able to visit every child on Earth in one night a quick detour to Mars doesn't hold many problems such as breathing the thin Martian air without a helmet on or, even more importantly, how he gets that beard into the helmet in the first place.

This advertised the second of a Speed and Power series entitled "Exploring Space" which included an illustration of the same Martian lander with rather more realistic astronauts surrounding it. Trigan Empire had moved into the hands of Oliver Frey by this issue and the B&W strip was Great Expectations.

Let's hope when Santa visits your house tonight his bag is as full as it is shown in these covers. Our final Christmas cover will appear tomorrow.

New Sandman Collections Announced

DC Comics imprint Vertigo has announced new, re-mastered editions of Neil Gaiman's critically-acclaimed series, Sandman.

Beginning next year, Vertigo will publish new trade paperback editions of Sandman in ten volumes - remastered and corrected versions of the comic the Los Angeles Times Magazine called “the greatest epic in the history of comic books,” featuring newly designed covers using Dave McKean’s spectacular and innovative art.

The series was initially re-coloured for the four oversized Absolute Sandman editions.

Vertigo previewed the covers of the first two volumes - Preludes and Nocturnes and The Doll's House - on its Graphic Content blog.