I’ll say
this as succinctly as possible, The Goon
by Eric Powell is great. If you long for
the days of well drawn art coupled with a complete story that is both parts
engaging and wacky, this book is for you.
Let’s break it down:
Cover:
This is how
a cover should be done. Even though it
is a montage of images, it still has a lot to do with the story contained
within. If you couldn’t tell by looking
at it, this comic deals with The Goon (naturally) fast cars and some unsavory
characters that he meets as a prohibition-era rum-runner. The art on the cover is indicative of the
beautiful art contained within with a color palette that is perfect to cause it
to pop out on the shelf. It is subdued
enough to set it apart from the super-hero drivel but vibrant enough to draw
your eyes to it. Powell even gets the
logo right. I love the idea of putting
the logo anywhere but the very top of the page as is traditionally done (and I
understand the reasoning behind the traditional logo placement but this looks
so much better). Powell colored the logo
red, which some may say “but the cover is predominantly red in color, doesn’t
that cause the logo to blend too much into the background?” It would, my observant friends, if the logo
did not have a black stroke around it and was not placed over a bright yellow
lightning bolt design. Not only that but
there is a hot rod coming right at you as the central image on the cover that
draws your eye right to the logo. Powell
knows exactly what he is doing here and it shows.
10/10 – I love the overall pulpy/old time movie poster feel
to the cover and the technical execution is top notch.
Story:
I am not familiar with The Goon, so I don’t
really know if this is the era that The Goon is set in or if it is a character
that Powell puts into any era and builds a story around (which he could as the
characters themselves are very solid).
That being said, the prohibition-era story here is great. It starts off with a dirty hillbilly with an
acoustic guitar introducing himself as the narrator.
From the first few pages, before we are even introduced to
The Goon himself I can tell that this is going to be a hilarious book. The content reminds me a little of the Flaming Carrot without all of the random
craziness, or The Tick with a more
believable cast of characters, either way it is incredibly solid as a
story. Plus it is a stand-alone story
with a beginning, middle and end (and it actually has three parts, each with
their own story). It reminds me a little
of the old EC Comics such as Tales from the Crypt in its artistic style but
also the pacing of the story.
Powell
packs so much into the story that it hurts any character development that could
have been had. I guess it’s a sacrifice
that he is willing to make, and one that I am reasonably ok with. The Goon almost feels like a generic
character that could be plugged into any situation (kind of like a Bugs Bunny)
where you do not expect there to be much actual character development because
they will just be in a completely new and unique situation the next
episode/issue. If that is the case then
it works like a charm. The
characterization that is given to both The Goon and his partner Franky accomplishes
the goal of getting the audience to root for them against the “bad guys” and
cheering their inevitable victory.
The third
story in the book “The Hooch Monkey” is by far the weakest of the bunch, but it
is still better than 90% of the comics on the market today. And I laughed out loud at the exposition by
our hillbilly narrator to close the issue.
Well played Powell, well played.
9/10 – It’s pretty impressive when a done-in-one story can
make me want to go out and pick up the next issue right away. Hell, it makes me want to go out on a back
issue search, and just absorb as much of this as possible. The Goon is a shining example why
independent, creator-owned comics are heads and shoulders above their
mainstream counterparts.
Art-
What can I
say about the art aside from the fact that it is beautiful. It fuses a Tick-like cartooniness with a
sense of realism that works perfectly.
Very few inkers do work that makes me stand up and take notice
(generally Tim Townsend and Scott Hanna just because of the difficulty inking
Bachalo and Romita Jr. respectively) but the inking here reminds me a little of
Toby Cypress which is great as Toby’s style is incredible. I love how the inking is so fluid and
organic, there are places where the ink is not solid black, it kind of washes
out a little, which works so well with the painterly coloring (also done by
Powell) that I could not imagine The Goon with anyone else on the creative
team. It may just be the era that the
comic is set in, but the art has a very nostalgic feel to it that I can’t get
enough of. The storytelling and the
pacing of the comic work incredibly well especially with the dialogue and
narration (which there is a lot of). The
panels and pages could easily feel claustrophobic with so much text but Powell
does a great job of balancing everything while also playing with, and often
times eliminating, panel borders in order to open up the page a bit and give it
breathing room.
10/10 – A work of art.
I have not enjoyed the coloring on a comic book this much since Blacksad.
10/10 – Welcome to my pull-list Goon, glad you could make
it.
No comments:
Post a Comment