Aircel is a strange little publisher, though I have to have some affection for it because it hails from just down the road from where I lived in Ontario. Their long-standing commitment to indie publishing in the mid to late 80s is quite laudable, though I'll admit that I've never really taken to any of their titles that I've read. The company was co-founded by Barry Blair, infamous for his erotic work that verged many times of the inappropriate.
Bloodlines (or Blood Lines) is interesting. It's pulling references from many great works of literature, chief amongst them Dante's Inferno. The setting is in some ways a city and in some ways that hellish landscape of Dante and Virgil's descent, and I haven't quite figured out the connection to the epic poem yet. I may never, as there were only 3 issues of the series published, I only have one, and I have no way of knowing if the story was ever completed. Aircel underwent significant changes in the late 80s and early 90s, and became a producer of erotic comics, letting slip many of the fantasy-based comics for which they had become known.
As with Mythos from a few days ago, this series is obviously a labour of love by the creator, and not one intended to bring in any significant financial restitution. And when more pressing matters (y'know, rent, food, stuff like that) take priority, creative endeavours can unfortunately fall by the wayside. Witness my series of Flash read-through posts.
Walton's artwork is a bit crude, or at least seemed so to me to begin with. But there's a scene that takes place in a police chief's office, and one the figures in this scene, a woman leaning up against a desk, her head hanging in defeat, conveys such a lovely sense of emotion that I realized that the art style is not unpracticed, but highly stylized. That said, his style has developed significantly over the last 30 years, as can be witness here.
Some more dollar bin goodies tomorrow. Onward!
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