I have no clue what the fuck was happening in this half the time. So some fat dude is being made fun of by his best friend. His friend leaves, gets attacked by some bad guys, friend dials on a payphone and poof, becomes a hero! Then every single time he uses the payphone, or the dial itself, to spell out hero, he becomes one. Then some creature, woman, mask thingy comes and tells him they must fight together, however some gangsters are hunting him down and...yeah. Lost? me too. Good: The start i...

Read the Original Review: http://thefoundingfields.com/2013/03/... “A weird collection that should have a target audience of horror and superhero graphic novel fans alike, but my expectations of a great graphic novel were let down and I was not impressed.” ~The Founding FieldsWriter: China Mieville | Art: Mateus Santolouco, David Lapham, Riccardo Burchielli | Cover Art: Brian Bollard | Collects: Dial H: #0-#6.• Hugo Award-winning novelist China Mieville joins DC Comics—The New 52 with the fir...

This is a pretty complicated comic and writer China Mieville just sort of throws his audience in the deep end without much by way of explanation, piling weirdness on weirdness. Just about the point where I couldn't take it any more, things slowed down a bit, got just a bit less weird, and some explanation was proffered, at which point, I decided, "Hey, I kind of like this!" The closest comparison I have is to the series Xombi, which had a couple of short-lived runs under the DC mantle, and was s...

Any schmuck can be a superhero? That sounds nice and all but does anyone really believe it? Heck no. There’s no way that my fat ass is going to be running around saving the world from super villains. If I could I totally would. But unless we’re talking Butterball from the Avengers Academy most of us average everyday bums aren’t going to have the opportunity to do much about the world around us.That’s the same sort of mindset that the hero of Dial H had.Rather, it’s the mindset he probably would

So yeah, I can see why this one was cancelled.Aside from my occasional confusion this was incredibly boring. The writing was disjointed, I didn't care about any of the characters, and the hero transformations where pathetic.A fat loser (fat by comic book standards) discovers a magical phone box...No, not that one, unfortunately.When he dials H-E-R-O he is transformed into some random reject 'hero' for a few hours. These characters are ridiculous, not funny ridiculous or interestingly weird, just...

Interesting concept. From reading other reviews, I understand this is a revamp of a showcase comic from years ago.In this carnation, we have as our protagonist Joe Average. Joe witnesses a crime, tries to intervene, and is targeted for violence in return. He finds an old rotary-dial pay phone in an alley and attempts to get help. He instead becomes some kind of weird superhero who stops the crime. But, to a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, and our Everyman gets sucked deeper a...

This was a lot better than I expected. Kinda like Grant Morrison at his mid-level wackiness. The writing is solid, the out there stuff isn't crazy so much that it gets stupid, like many out there books do.A loser main character who turns into random heroes every time he dials a random phone rotary dial. Some are crazy, some are lame, but the variety is vast. Then he runs into bad guys who are mysterious, as well as a potential ally.This is also the best DC book I've read in the last bunch, which...

A few days ago, Nelson was just another out-of-shape guy without much going for him. And he still is, really, but now the H-Dial (4376 spells... HERO!) has transformed him into some random superhero, and he has teamed up with his best friend's murderer to protect an old lady superhero from a supervillain and a very angry void... If you like your superheroics a bit on the quirky, less-than-divine side, China Miéville's Dial H just might be for you.

Dial H is one weird comic book (in a very good way). It is a genre-bending tour de force that introduces many amazing concepts and ideas that only China Miéville could come up with. I started reading the book without knowing what it was about, and I think it made the experience even more thrilling.I do not understand why people complain about the book's surrealism and non-linear plot - as it is in fact a very straight-forward, perfectly clear story that is very well told and beautifully drawn. T...

Nelson Jent is an out-of-shape, unemployed schlub who discovers a mysterious phone booth with a rotary dial in an alley near his flat. When he dials a specific number – H-E-R-O (the letters are underneath the numbers) – he transforms into… well, any number of random whacky “superheroes” for a short time before reverting back to his normal self! With his new powers he’s going to get revenge on the bad guys who killed his buddy. Dial H isn’t a very good comic but I didn’t hate it. One of my issues...

China Mieville is a great voice in fantasy and sci-fi fiction. His novels are intelligent, original and engaging, appealing in both their ideology and narrative. So I was somewhat excited to find that he had broken out into graphic novels. Unfortunately my excitement was short lived. I so much wanted to enjoy this story of a telephone booth that transforms our central character ino a range of superheroes. The problem with the book is one of Mieville’s strengths as a novelist. Mieville is known

I read this as a fan of China Mieville. And while it is fun, it has nowhere near the imagination and glorious weirdness of his prose. The story is that ordinary obese loser Nelson lucks into finding a magical phone. Whenever he dials HERO on it, he channels a random bizarre superhero from somewhere. These are often silly, and occasionally fascinating. Needless to say, Nelson stumbles into adventures. There are occasional bizarre concepts and interesting character moments, but most of the comic y...

I picked that up because I am a huge fan of the writer China Mieville but I have to say I am having a hard time making sense of this book.

I don't doubt that I would have completely overlooked Dial H if it weren't written by Miéville. But his name was enough to interest in me in what is, frankly, a niche comic to begin with. I know absolutely nothing about the older versions of the concept, so I came in without any preconceived notions. But what you get is pretty much exactly what you would expect to see if you were told that Miéville would be trying his hand at creating superheroes. And the best issue in the collection by far is t...

I have finely found that most elusive of China Miéville's creatures -- a story that disappoints. Never before have I closed a cover on a Miéville book and felt as let down as I did finishing . Did I miss something? Was it failure on my part as a reader? Am I becoming too jaded? Nope, nope & nope. No, I think it all boils down to being both a rehash and dumping ground for Miéville. The rehashing is everywhere, but the rehashing that bothered me most was in the dialogue boxes of "Abyss" -- the bi...

Cool concept, with a unique story line packed with twists and some truly wacky characters. Nelson, an out of shape, unemployed, depressed man, accidentally discovers the H-Dial, a telephone dial on a nearby payphone that turns him into a superhero when he dials 4-3-7-6 (H-E-R-O). Unfortunately, the dial is on the fritz, lasting for varying periods of time, and the hero he becomes is always random, sometimes with truly odd results (i.e.: Captain Lachrymose, Boy Chimney, and Cock-A-Hoop, to name a...

WhatTheFuckWasThis?! I've never read any of the older Dial H stuff, so I went into this with no preconceived notions as to what it was about.And once I finished this, I still had no idea what it was about.An out of shape loserish guy tries to save his friend from thugs, by dialing for help in a phone booth...and turns into a superhero.Boy Chimney! In case you were wondering, he chokes out the bad guys with his noxious chimney smoke.But the best part of this magical phone booth (or Dial) is th

Quirky and fun. It does kind of throw you into the mix without explaining what's going on, but it starts backstorying after a few issues. I liked the use of the dial being likened to an addiction, and how the superhero role can start consuming your identity. Looking forward to the second collection.

Only China Mieville could write a comic with a hero named Captain Lachrymose - a protagonist who feeds off the sadness of others to become powerful. Great idea with poor results here. An obese Joe Schmo accidentally discovers that he can randomly turn into different weird super heroes after dialing H-E-R-O into a payphone. (Do they still have these?) Anyway, part of the hook is that he quickly has to discover each time what his super powers are and how they work. Now, that is somewhat confusing

I liked the basic premise and the fact that the protagonists were a woefully overweight and generally unhealthy man in his late twenties and an elderly woman. I didn't like the fact that DC chose to depict a much more trimmed down version of the main protagonist on the cover of this book. Really? They didn't think they could sell a comic book with a fat guy on the cover? I also found that the author was trying too hard to be funny at times. China Miéville isn't funny (as evidenced by his novels