How Loathesome Review

I utterly detested the graphic novel in question in it's first opening pages. I was under the impression that it was going to be one of the more pompous "slice of life" stories: where constant, catty, 'Tarantino tryhard' dialogue has run amok and the social outcast protagonists constantly point their noses above the rest of society even though they are even more petty than the people they lambast. 

My stomach churned, as my only hope was to finish the trade paperback as quickly as possible. Fortunately I was pleasantly surprised. 

The self indulgent arragonace which plagues a great deal of non-genre comics, that I was afraid How Loathesome was going to revel in, evaporates to reveal a emotionally resonating and quite frankly  fun comic book.

I would emphasize "fun" as the most appropriate means of describing How Loathesome, not because it's enjoyable but vapid,  like most art that is stuck with the "fun" adjective. It's very intriguing in it's themes and characterization. Instead I am remarking upon the book's capacity to seem more erudite at a glance than it is in reality: 

The cast is colorful, and there is more thought put into them by the author, Ted Naifeh than any average writer would across any medium. Take for instance the sardonic companion of the two protagonists, who is constantly demeaning towards transsexuals. By the hands of a less skilled author, he would mainly manifest as a one sided strawman, a representative in the narrative to illustrate the stigma against those who are transgender; A clear cut antagonist who would get his comeuppance in the end. Fortunately, this Naifeh gives nuance to this supporting character: Despite his blatant transphobia, he is seen engaging in sexual activities with a trans individual, as well as the anomaly of why he befriends the two protagonists in the first place.

 However, you would be damned to find any sense of character development throughout. How Loathesome introduces it's key players, you get to peak into a day of their lives, and that's it. This comic is humble in it's lack of grandeur. 

The message conveyed is similarly meager: When you think of the greatest social commentaries or morality plays in fiction, most typically the central idea the author is attempting to convey, goes through an arc of it's own. Take the novel Crime and Punishment: Raskolnikov increasingly becomes more guilt stricken over his act of murder. He initially begins with a sense of justification for his actions, but increasingly throughout the novel he becomes more and more in tune with the immorality of the murder he committed.  

There is a very clear progression of the reader's perception of murder: You begin with one worldview, and end with another. How Loathesome does not abide by this. It's takes on issues such as transphobia and how that issue intersects among various LGBT subcultures is thought provoking, but it doesn't go the extra step of making a statement about this prediciment. It is merely wallpaper to the main narrative. 

Ultimately this is perfectly adequate, I do not get the impression that the authors did not intend to give How Loathesome a a sense of grandeur beyond what it deserves. It is a fun, character driven romp, not attempting to give solutions to the issue of transphobia.  Its political backdrop serves the same role as the "Seude" and "Killing Joke" records and posters in the background: a further layer to the book, but it does not represent the book. 

How Loathesome does not have the components of a great book, but it's surplus charms grant it to have the staying power in the reader's mind as if it were one 

7/10

Petit Volume 1 Review

I've not universially liked all of Hubert's work, but one cannot deny that he has penned some of the most optimal comics of this decade.

As he had illustriously showed with a prior work of his, Beauty, Hubert takes the conceptuality of a children's fairy tale and melds into something horrific yet filled to the brim with whimsy.

Petit is a comic that fires on all cylinders: It has the brisk pace of a manga, but manages to compensate with superb character work and exquisite mythology.

Hubert creates an ideological spectrum among the three most prominent characters: Desdée, the grandmother, who is indisputably the most moral giant in the story, yet is cursed with an excessive cynicism and impassivity; Émione, whose shares a monstrous disdain for humans in sync with the rest of her kind, but nonetheless is commendable if only for her of love of her son; and Petit, the titular protagonist, who we see through the entirety of the book endeavor through his ethical confusion that results of him being neither man nor giant.

The mythos Hubert engraves is utterly splendid. Giants, fantastical kingdoms, and medieval intrigue are old as day and night, Petit turn these elements into something bold and never before charted.

Bertrand Gatignol's artwork, while slightly obnoxious in it's tumblr, cal-arts stylings, can be illuminating in it's brilliance. The castle in it's near entirely obsidian colored interiors feels tremendously iconic. Much like Hubert's previous collaborator, Kerescoët, Gatignol depiction of the depravities on this book as if it were a DreamWorks or Pixar feature is hysterical.

Much like Moore and Gibbons, Jodorowsky and Moebius, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Hubert and Gatignol seems like a pairing for the ages, considering how succinct their collaboration together is.

8/10

Blame! Master Edition Volume One Review

Science fiction as a genre has fostered grand achievements over the years. It, as well as other genres with a fantastical bent, have been a tried and true vessel for an author to let their imagination run wild. Yet for a corner of fiction that is filled with infinite possibilities, science fiction is plagued with cliches and trappings. So much so that original works feel inseparable from their influences. Blame! Is the epitome of the aforementioned.

 With all due respect to the cult fanbase that Blame! has amassed, Tsutomu Nihei's manga feels largely enslaved stylistically to it's dystopian, cyberpunk contemporaries. I say largely, because there are a scant few areas in which Nihei attempts to give Blame! a distinct style when it comes to his depiction of faces and his accentuation on limiting dialogue in favor of wordless panels emphasizing the location. These two characteristics of the book are laudable, but they fail miserably in my opinion; I'll explain why:

Firstly, we'll start analyzing Nihei's pencils. While unmistakably Japanese, he nevertheless strays from Manga norms in how he draws faces. Out are the exaggerated eyes that are unavoidable in Manga, in exchange for more jagged noses, and more spaced apart eyes. It would certainly be appropriate to compare Nihei's characters to those of American comics artists Scott McDaniel, and Leonardo Manco. Deviating from the norm however, does not always guarantee equate with success, as it is humorously unfortunate that the  characters Blame!, look more akin to disfigured felines rather than human beings.

Secondly I will state my view on Blame's lack of dialogue. Wordless (or almost wordless) comics, in my opinion hardly succeed in what they are trying to accomplish. Unlike film, wherein there are no sneak peaks, only the present, word deprived comics seem to lack the tension or emotional impact of comic books with the presence of words. I suspect the reason for this is that the dialogue captions and balloons force the reader to stay in one panel for a particular amount of time. Becaus of this, the reader becomes used to the status quo of that segment of the page, making the changes made in the following panels more impactful. With wordless comics you don't have this experience. Another obvious benefit of words in comics is their role in character development. Very few artists are able to show the characters' emotions with their art without depending on the writer to insert their word balloons. One might presume that Nihei conducted this approach to have readers to immerse themselves in the setting. Some artists with their detail so meticulous that their backgrounds have a personality and wit of their own. A Geof Darrow or a Moebius can get away with dedicating a series of pages to a birds eye view of downtown. Nihei, unfortunately, does not have this talent. The environment of Blame! is bloated and spacious, but more hideous and drab than impressive.

Blame! is a weird, ugly comic. Neither it's conventions nor it's quirks could keep it afloat.

2/10

The Basis For My Ratings

*Update. I have been putting a halt to my reviews since the last review until up to this point because I was in the midst of reading, and devising a review of - - George Perez's Wonder Woman.

That aforementioned review should appear tommorow. As for today, I will elaborate on my criteria for the various 1 through 10 scale ratings I bestow on a comic:

1/10
Illegible, incomprehensible, and incoherent.

2/10
So awful to the point, that it is comical, but not to the point where it is impossible to interpret.

3/10
A bland incompetent work with virtually no redeeming value. Arguably the worst rating a book can have as it is worse than a four and a five, but isn't bad enough to be nearly as fascinating as a one or humorous as a two, it merely resides in an abyss of disposability.

4/10
Walks the tightrope constantly between good and bad. It may have some truly spectacular elements, but has enough truly awful components that it ends up in this cornucopia of mediocrity.

5/10
An astronomical books that can be seen as very enjoyable could be put in this category. Alas, a five is not exceptional nor memorable enough truly be considered above average.

6/10
Unobjectionably of quality. It does not have the ambition that would result in more creativity or depth that would lead to it having a seven, eight, nine, or a ten however.

7/10
Very good. Few flaws. Overall decent

8/10
Terrific. Never fails to impress the vast majority of the time. It's only vice is that there are a select few books that are a higher tier.

9/10
A work that deserves to be remembered decades later.

10/10
A standard that I have yet to see be met. Even in the most surgically precise books there is always r a facet that I could critique, or at the very least imagine could be better.

Wonder Woman 195-205 Review

What Greg Rucka does for the character of Princess Diana is commendable, and elevates his issues of the Wonder Woman ongoing to some of the greatest heights the character has ever soared (while one may argue that doesn't say much): Rucka plays up the ambassador and public icon facet of Wonder Woman  and deemphasizing her role as a traditional superhero. Diana being forced to combat an American public skeptical of  the radical, paganistic views she brings forth to the world is as essential to the plot as her clashing with her (underwhelming to be frank) rogues gallery. In many ways more than one, this enables Rucka's Wonder Woman to be more akin to Aaron Sorkin's West Wing or Newsroom than orthodox superhero fare.

What must also be lionized (though maybe less so) is Drew Johnson's pencils: Johnson's quasi lifelike and statuesque method of illustrated characters is perfectly suited for Greg Rucka's more political perspective on Wonder Woman.

However, every compliment about Rucka's original run on Wonder Woman one can give are a double edged sword, as you see momentarily. While a gargantuan portion of what makes Greg Rucka as a writer so acclaimed, his slight, early 2000's indicative snark, as well as his (supposedly) more grounded take on superheroes, these attributes that reputedly elevate his work, do not mask the reality that these books of his are very much within the confines of the superhero genre, and these aforementioned quirks that make Rucka unique are actually a hindrance to his comics. 

Painting a spotlight on Wonder Woman ambassador duties is a fascinating change of pace, in fact if Rucka dedicated his run entirely to this portion of the book, a modern classic could have been conjured. Quite unfortunately, either editorial or Rucka himself felt compelled to still include the villain of the week trope that is a staple of comics. This would not be a net negative as in and of itself, but this leads to the writer juggling two conflicts at once and because of it, the antagonists suffer. All the villainous characters save Veronica Cale feel misplaced and tacked on. 

Greg Rucka also suffers from the same issues as his contemporaries Bendis, David, and Simone in regards to the fact that their "hip", "laid back" dialogue which was in chic at the dawn of the 21st century does not easily translate well to the world of superheroes. These are stories which fundamentally involve high stakes and men who bear god-like abilities. Rucka's snark filled, nonchalant dialogue is dreadfully out of place. The more casual linguistics spouted by the characters of modern superhero comics is in all likelihood a reaction to the oft flat words spewed by the characters of the Golden, Silver, and Bronze Age, little do these contemporary writers realize is that this archaic form of dialogue, while unrealistic, helps realize the mythic and larger than life status of the protagonists. 

The glimmers of greatness that the opening 10 issues of Greg Rucka's run are plentiful and fruitful. However, it falls flat on it's face in numerous areas. 

5/10

Royal City by Jeff Lemire Review

Jeff Lemire is one of the most perplexing comics professionals alive today. He produces material that seems so divorced from one another aesthetically, thematically, and in terms of sheer quality that you would swear on your mother's grave that half of his work is from an entirely different author.

To be precise, it happens that there are two sides of Jeff Lemire. The first being one of the premier  writers in the independent comics scene. A writer who, recycles the many motifs of his work, makes up for it with his propensity to weave some of the greatest familial and interpersonal dynamics in comics, and one who can pull at the readers heart strings more than any other.

The other Jeff Lemire, however is yet another by the numbers lackey of the Big Two. His superhero stories read like they were part of a promotional flipbook that came with a box of cereal. His independent comics are more sufficient than his bibliography at Marvel, DC,  or Valiant, but they still feel rather underdeveloped and struggling too hard to reach the greatness of the other Lemire.

A Jeff Lemire comic is like a coin toss, if you the odds were in your favor, you scored big, but if you lost, you just wasted away thirty minutes of your life on complete dreck. Fortunately, I am euphoric to say that Royal City is the former rather than the latter.

Within these pages, a gripping ghost story unravels. Admittedly, some of the key characters in Royal City are a tad stereotypical. You have the alcoholic failure, the aging father in the midst of a sexless marriage, etcetera. What makes redeems these potentially one note stock characters however, is the depth that Lemire gives to them. Jeff Lemire retains the ability to regurgitate old concepts and regift as to make them appear fresh and new. Under the hands of a less capable author, or perhaps Jeff Lemire wrote this book at DC or Marvel, these characters would be vexatiously dull, but Lemire performs a respectable task at making the denizens of Royal City well rounded.

The childlike, almost "outsider art" quality to Lemire's pencils  dazzle once again in the pages of this book. Just like great artists Gilbert Hernandez and Laurence Hubbard, the raw yet kinetic style of Jeff Lemire makes the act of drawing look easy. This method of drawing comes with it's hindrances as well. The landscapes are barren and vacuous and the poses the characters of the narrative make are at best that of a cheap Chinese action figure or at worst that of a third grader's stick figure drawing. Alas, both of these critiques can be percieved as part of Lemire's charm as an artist, and really boils down to personal preference.

Primarily I see Jeff Lemire as a sort of Woody Allen figure within the comics sphere. His oeuvre is drowned out by lesser works, so much so that it is all too easy to underestimate him. However, he always surprises you when he releases that one good comic every couple of years.

6/10

Superman in the New Millennium Part 2: Jurgens's Action and Tomasi's Superman.

The Rebirth initiative inaugurated arguably the greatest era of Superman comics in more than a decade and a half not for the typical reasons of reinventing and innovating the titular hero, like so many writers trying to craft a "classic" run try to do, but merely on the basis that the comics were good.

Writers given the burden of writing Superman in his various titles have been pondering for decades on how to default Superman back to his position as comics' greatest hero, and this means changing the cardinal foundation of the character. In Godfall and For Tomorrow, Superman was placed in science fiction setting more appropriate for a Michael Bay film or a Marc Silvestri comic rather than a something that felt natural for the Man of Steel. Robinson, Rucka, Loeb, and Kelly built the character up to be the linchpin of company wide events such as Our Worlds at War and New Krypton. Austen attempted to inject a love triangle between Lana Lang, Clark Kent, and Lois Lane. Finally, J. Michael Straczynski haphazardly attempted to translate O'Neil's dated Green Lantern/Green Arrow to Superman. The New Fifty Two doubled down on the gimmicks: Replacing his tights with Jim Lee armor, gifting him with a new angst ridden, brash personality, and as a final nail on the coffin, outing his secret identity to the public. All of these falling flat on their face.

While Rebirth did change some aspects to the Superman status quo, these changes didn't alter the Superman formula a s we know it. In the Rebirth 'Action Comics' and 'Superman' Clark Kent was once more in a fruitful marriage with longtime love interest Lois Lane fighting extraordinary threats with the same 'gee whizz' attitude that has been a staple of the character in his most iconic forms. Lex Luthor becoming a hero, while being a problematic notion in the long term, was a very entertaining subplot in Action Comics, and didn't overstate it's welcome. The emergence of Jon Kent in 'Superman' marked, in my opinion, one of the most engaging new creations in the Superman mythos since Steel and Superboy during Reign of the Superman more than two decades prior.

Jurgens and Tomasi were not great successors to the Superman throne mind you: There was the odd subpar storyline and the stellar status quo of the two creative teams were breaker up by writers and artists of lesser quality in a likelyhood due to breakneck scheduling pace caused by the premier titles of the DC Rebirth li ne being bimonthly. Nonetheles, Tomasi and Jurgens managed to return Superman, not to his past heights of popularity, as every past contemporary Superman writer had failed to accomplish, but to a level of dependable competency in his titles.

Superman is a character whose milquetoast toast nature leads to a situation wherein it is best not to rock the boat. While someone such as Batman is heavily malleable,  as he can be a campy science fiction hero, a semiserous pulp detective, or a troubled verteran antihero and have all interpretations work equally well, Superman is comparatively rigid in terms of characterization, location, and tone. Superman doesn't succeed as a bully for the working class as in Morrison's run, or a man on the run as in Yang's run, or a straight up ass as in Austen's.

Elseworlds and Imaginary Tales put aside, Superman should be the kindhearted but bold from equal part Krypton and Kansas with Lois Lane by his side. These are the fundamentals of the character, and what made both Jurgens and Tomasi's takes on him work in contrast to the past near two decades.