Dial H

Comics are a funny industry. While graphic novels denote the medium as a whole, that description is often saved for those stories which have a conclusive ending. Image publishes graphic novels because they mainly publish creator owned works with a definitive ending. Marvel and DC meanwhile, keep their stories going, and are thus given the title of comic books. The capeshit just goes on and on, and have led to a consumer base that is trained to experience works in "runs", following a single character across multiple writers, selecting which writers run they will view. Of course, this episodic style of storytelling by the big two means that writers will often step on the toes of others. Not only that, the interconnected nature of their universes mean that oftentimes writers must work in tandem with the writers of other books, while not contradicting the past or the present.

In other words, comics are a mess. Multiple soap operas merging and diverging from one another, taking the past into constant regard until they can't and continuity is retconned or the universe is rebooted, reset from a new starting point. This is where China Mieville's Dial H comes in. Comissioned at the start of the New 52 reboot for DC comics, Mieville's Dial H is unique for it's generally self-contained manner. It is also unique because of Mieville himself. A novelist by trade, Mieville is an openly socialist, wonderfully imaginative British writer. This was his first, and to date only, swing at a comic book. Due to the New 52 resetting the DC universe entirely, Mieville was essentially given carte blanche to tell the story of Nelson Gent, an overweight, lazy, and middle-aged sad-sack. His life is given purpose when he discovers a telephone booth that allows him to dial in the numeric for HERO, thus taking on the identity of a random superhero.

Aside from one issue, these heroes are wholly original creations, with speech patterns and abilities that are each unique. Mieville and the artists create a drab and crimefilled world that opens up as Nelson discovers more and more superpowers, as well as those who know of the magical phone dials. The dynamic between him and Manteau is great, with strong banter between the two as they try to uncover the secrets of the dials. Along the way, the two are chased by threats both physical and metaphysical. As always, Mieville's concepts are fantastic, leading the reader to question if using the dial at all is immoral. The dark secrets of the dials subvert the classical superhero ideal of saving the day at any cost, and Mieville leads the reader to question if our heroes search for answers about the dial is doing more harm than good. As always, Mieville's conceptual grasp of the medium he is flexing his creative powers in leads to some fascinating questions, and Dial H as a whole feels like a deconstruction of the soap opera based nature of many comic books. Its brevity at 15 issues feels like it ties the work together, as opposed to becoming another bloated carcass. Dial H poses some interesting questions for readers of comic books, while still maintaining a sense of reverence for the medium despite the deconstruction. Add some gorgeous, vibrant artwork to Mieville's high concept writing, and what we are given is an extremely underrated gem of a comic book. This never found the publicity it deserved at time of release, being overshadowed by various reboots of bigger characters, but it deserves your attention if you are at all interested in the medium.