Bad Doings & Big Ideas: A Bill Willingham Deluxe Edition by Bill Willingham (Author/Illustrator), Mark Buckingham, Ross Campbell, Zander Cannon, Richard Corben, Duncan Fegredo, Peter Gross, Paul Guinan, Niko Henrichon, Adam Hughes, Phil Jiminez, Michael Wm. Kaluta, Jason Little, Shawn McManus, Linda Medley, Albert Monteys, Kevin Nowlan, Andrew Pepoy, David Peterson, Paul Pope, Eric Powell, Ron Randall, John Stokes, Jill Thompson, Daniel Torres, Bernie Wrightson, John Bolton, Dave McKean, Tara McPherson (Illustrators); DC Comics/Vertigo; 2011; 514 pgs; $49.99 US

Bill Willingham is probably best known as the creator of the DC/Vertigo comic book series Fables, but he’s had a long and storied career that predates his Fairy-Tale sensation by years. DC Comics has packaged a good deal of that material (At least all of it that was originally published under the Vertigo imprint…) in the massive collection Bad Doings & Big Ideas: A Bill Willingham Deluxe Edition. (This is truly a comment on Willingham’s importance to the Vertigo comics line…..I can’t recall DC making this much fuss about a Writer since Neil Gaiman.) Clocking in at a massive 514 pages, the gargantuan omnibus reprints fourteen different Willingham stories (Collected from 25 separate comic books), with stories running the gamut from gentle satire to full-on Gothic Horror.

The collection leads off with what is probably my favorite Willingham story, Proposition Player. Joey Martin is the titular “Proposition Player”, a gambler hired by a Casino to sit in on games and keep the tables lively. While debating about gambling superstitions with some fellow Casino workers, Joey makes a proposition of his own to prove how superstitious most people really are: He offers to buy his friends soul in exchange for a beer. Things get out of hand, and the tight-fisted Joey is soon swimming in “I.O.U. One Soul” vouchers. But the bet ends up costing Joey more than just a few beers, as he’s soon targeted by minions of Heaven, Hell, and assorted other Divine Pantheons…..By taking possession of those souls, Joey has entered a game with higher stakes than he’s ever played for: Heaven and Hell want those souls, and they’ll do anything to keep Joey from using his small stake to gamble his way higher up the afterlife food-chain. Proposition Player was originally a six-issue mini-series, and it’s Willingham at his best. Sly, subversive humor, clever ideas, and flawless execution. This is, without a doubt, the best story in the book, and should have been the closer instaed of the opener.

It’s followed up by a short story from Vertigo’s Flinch anthology entitled “It Takes A Village”. It’s a cute story with a great premise (A company that rents out Monsters) that I’d love to see Willingham explore further. (He does say, in the story’s introduction, that he’d like to incorporate these characters into Fables someday.)

Next up is a quintet of stories based around Neil Gaiman characters from his Sandman series. As good as these stories are, I’d have to imagine they’d be a tough nut to crack for people that aren’t familiar with Gaiman’s Dream King and his realm. All five stories are told with tongue firmly in cheek, especially the first three, two of which were originally published as one-shots, the other as an issue of the Sandman spin-off, The Dreaming. Merv Pumpkinhead, Agent of D.R.E.A.M.; The Further Adventures of Danny Nod, Heroic Library Assistant; & Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Dreams, But Were Afraid To Ask are all fun stories, but without any context from the rest of the series, or anything to explain to a new reader just what The Dreaming IS and how it works, I can’t help but feel that most readers would be left scratching their heads. The remaining two Sandman related tales star his former lover Thessaly, the last of the dreaded Thessalian Witches. They were originally published as two four-issue mini-series, and they’re illustrated by Thessaly’s co-creator Shawn McManus. Thessaly is my favorite Sandman character, and I defy anyone to read these stories and not fall in love with her. I realize that the Sandman spin-off ship has long since sailed, but I continue to hold out hope that either Gaiman or Willingham will get a chance to revisit this wonderful character again someday. (Preferably someday SOON, hint hint hint….)

The collection is rounded out by seven short stories from the awful House of Mystery revamp. The main series was Written by Matthew Sturges, and each issue had a short story by a guest creative team that complimented that month’s main story arc. All seven of Willingham’s shorts are presented here, but again, without the context of the stories they were originally contained within, they don’t quite work. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not bad, and they’re illustrated by a bevy of comic-book legends, but they’re probably not the best way to wrap up the book.

Bad Doings & Big Ideas: A Bill Willingham Deluxe Edition is a great looking book, way above DC’s usually cheap standards. There’s brand-new cover art by James Bennett, a nearly-complete gallery of covers from the original issues (They omit the Flinch cover, probably because it had nothing to do with Willingham’s story…), and Willingham provides a new introduction and story notes. Bad Doings can be found for up to fifty percent off at various online merchants, but even at the fifty dollar cover price, it’s a great value.

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Jan 20, 2012

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