How’s it going, Comic Carnival Faithful? It’s kind of a mad week here and the boss is wondering why we’re all busy this weekend, so let’s get into it.
I’d be criminally negligent if I didn’t look at something from the Batman universe this week, but I thought I’d try something different. Batwoman 11 (Williams III/ Blackman/ McCarthy) is far away from your standard Bat-book. I’m coming into this series late, and while I expected to feel a bit lost, this lost feeling was multiplied by drunk and dizzy. Batwoman (whose idea of stealth is to wear her hair down and neon red) is kind of fighting someone that may have been a woman and is now a man maybe, trying to reclaim some kidnapped children that honestly don’t seem to mind, but ultimately lets the bad guys get away to save a cop that she’s also dating. Confused? Me too, and I just wrote that.
The artwork (though not the usual team) is oddly captivating. There’s a quality to every page that, despite the ultra-crisp linework, feels otherworldly. I’m a bit turned off by the coloring, though. At first I liked the idea of Batwoman applying makeup that gave her skin a deathly pallor to play up the dark mystique, but then she’s revealed in her civvies and I realized that wasn’t makeup, she just has necrosis and everyone’s too polite to say anything.
Despite all that, I’ve got to suggest this series for the general reader. You see, as lost as I am, I find myself wanting to go back and figure out what’s going on. Any book that can make almost no sense but still inspire a drive to figure out more deserves a nod.
Saga 5 (Vaughan/ Staples) continues to impress me. Through all the window dressing of neon-lit asteroids, masked alien pimps, and interplanetary war are simple, well-told stories.
This issue looks at the things people do for love, focusing on three couples and their very different situations. In short, people get a bit crazy, and it ends better for some than others. This issue ends on a downer, in case that makes a difference.
I’d never heard of Fiona Staples before Saga, and given the level of quality she brings to every panel, I don’t know how that happened. Her range of expression, scenery, and action are the perfect vehicle for Vaughan’s dialogue.
This series is a rare find in that it has a functional letters column at the end, once a given in comics but now more elusive than Bigfoot. What makes this even rarer is that there’s no electronic option - if you want to write in, you have to put it on paper and send it in the mail. Saga’s readers send in some odd things, and what’s even more delightful is that Vaughan responds to everything himself, with the same care and humor the comic is done in. It’s like its own narrative arc, almost.
Punk Rock Jesus 1 of 6 (Sean Murphy) is the bastard love child of cable gospel channels and reality TV, with ten times the entertainment value. In the near future, a few people decide to clone Jesus and show everyone what happens. The set-up (which is most of the issue) is insane enough that I won’t spoil it, but it’s cynical enough to be believable yet honest enough to be silly. There are moments that pull on the heartstrings as well as moments that pull on fingers. One of the basic themes of this book is the implication that we as a species can never hit rock bottom because we keep finding newer, lower roads to take.
Both the writing and art are by Sean Murphy, who’s done a few solo books by now. I take special delight when a whole book comes from one person because there’s no real gap between the reader and the original idea. In most cases, one person has the idea, tries to explain that idea to a few other people, who transcribe their impressions of the idea on a page and then it gets to us, the readers. I’m all for the collaborative process, but sometimes the extra buffers interfere. There are plenty of people whose minds I want to stay far away from, but in this case I like the proximity.
The Secret Service 3 (Millar/ Gibbons) is something I didn’t expect to like, but so far it’s pleasantly surprising me. The world’s greatest secret agent has no time for family, but decides to make some time when he bails out his nephew and notices some untapped potential. In this issue, Jack (the Agent so Super-Secret that by the time you read this I’m probably dead) has just finished some casual espionage into China, while Gary (Agent-in-training) is discovering his strengths and weaknesses. Gary doesn’t have much middle ground, he either sets the bar high or knocks himself unconscious from hitting the bar.
Dave Gibbons is famous for being reliable. His style hasn’t changed much since his Watchmen days, focusing on realism and subtle expression to carry the narrative. There’s nothing singular about his art that makes it stand out from his peers, but his fundamentals are so solid that he doesn’t need any bells or whistles.
What made me avoid this series initially was the description on the back cover of issue 1: to sum it up, a loser in a slum finds a way to be special and he takes it. The premise doesn’t vary much from Wanted or Kick-Ass, both of which I’d read and so I figured I’d already read The Secret Service. I can’t say that this is different yet, but it does a few things differently that made me pause. Millar’s trend has been to up the pacing and level of shock value with each successive story, but The Secret Service is slower than his normal. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t read slow, but it’s not trying too hard to be more extreme than Millar’s last story or whatever. Maybe Gibbons is influencing him into focusing on the fundamentals of storytelling and making them work.
I’m going to withhold judgment on the series for now, but the first three issues make me hopeful.
That’s it for this week, folks! Have a great weekend!
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