First
of all, the monkey earns some brownie points off the bat. The fact that the art style by Mark A.
Robinson seems to be a slight cross between Frank Cho and Humberto Ramos
(leaning far closer to Ramos) means that it creates a visually appealing cover
that draws interest. The coloring tones
everything down a bit too much for my taste (and it doesn’t help that the paper
has a matte finish and is surrounded by glossy covers on the racks). The subject matter is closely related to the
story of the comic, making this a quasi-narrative cover, which in my book gets
it extra bonus points. I like the logo
as well, but it all is just way too blue.
5/10 +1 for the Monkey – This is a slightly effective cover
that would have been better served with a little brighter coloring.
Story:
I’m at
a loss here. I like the story by Kel
Symons, and I especially like the pacing within the story, but I really don’t
know what it’s about. I get little
snippets here and there that the main character Felicia is an assassin, with
teleportation powers, maybe, it looks like teleportation is part of her powers
at least. She was presumed to be dead as
the result of a plane crash and since then has been laying low (aside from the
whole assassin thing). I’m not sure how
she got the powers, or even why at this point.
Plus there are other people with powers, some guy that can allow you to
see what he has seen for example, but I’m not sure about the significance or
prevalence of these powers in the grand scheme of things. She used to kill without a conscience until a
little kid saw her kill his mother, now she goes to therapy to deal with her
demons (that seem to have manifested themselves in the form of a monkey – hence
the cover). She has been dicked around
for most of her time since coming back from the dead, with her ex-boyfriend now
banging her sister, even though he is kind of back together with her…
Did you
catch all that? No? Don’t worry, I only half got it myself.
The
highlight of the issue is the dialogue.
Symons has a great ability to not only highlight the relationship
between the main character and her psychiatrist (with a little extra thrown in
by the monkey, probably representing her subconscious and the things she wish
she could say) but also the relationship between two siblings, highlighting the
feelings that might take place upon seeing someone you loved come back from the
dead, and then realizing that maybe you were better off with them being
actually dead the whole time.
Symons does a great job of
establishing the relationships of the people, but he fails at establishing the
story in an issue by issue basis. Like I
outlined above, there is a lot to go over and not a lot of clues as to how any
of it fits together. Even in the context
of the issue itself, it’s hard to see where things are going. For example, Felicia, after finishing her
session with the psychologist, appears to ask the receptionist Gayle (who we
are just meeting for the first time if you are new to the comic) to go out to a
bar with her. Never mind that it’s 11am
(I don’t judge) but are these two friends?
Did they strike up a relationship based on Felicia’s time spent at the
psychologist? I get it that Felicia
opened up more to Gayle in the bar than she did to the psychologist, that’s a
nice touch, but in the rush to make the point, it feels like the writer forgot
to connect points A and B first. Plus,
what is Felicia’s connection to the strange guy with the “do you see what I
see” power? Do they work together? If not, why would a trained assassin let such
a shady-looking guy get so close?
4/10 – There are many positives to the writing here in terms
of the dialogue and just that subtle message about the nature of therapy,
however the fact that nothing is really established, and connections are not
clarified makes me feel kind of lost.
Art:
As
stated above, the art by Robinson has a very Ramos-esque quality to it, which
is nice without being a total ripoff. I
love the fact that the art pulls back, so that the characters are tiny,
especially in those scenes where dialogue is key and the writer requires a bit
more room. Instead of trying to make
everything fit, Robinson picks his moments and lets the dialogue do the work in
these quieter scenes. The marriage of
dialogue and art is perfect.
Trying to squeeze a fully detailed office scene into here while leaving room for dialogue would have been as much a pain to do as it would have been to read. Sometimes simple is better.
There
are a few instances where it’s not 100% clear what is going on, which generally
seems to coincide with the text being a bit unclear as well.
This portion being the critical offender
I’m
sure that I’ve said it before, but I prefer art like this, that’s a bit more
abstract, a bit more cartoony than you would traditionally find in comic
books. That’s one of my favorite things
about comic books post-1990. Before
that, most artists were trying to draw like John Buscema, Bernie Wrightson or
Joe Kubert (to name a few, my list could go on for pages). After the comics explosion of the 1990s, it
seemed like any and every style was incorporated at the Big Two, which in turn
made them accepted throughout the comics community as they gained that
mainstream exposure. I like this art,
even if the proportions aren’t always right, or the backgrounds are not generally
drawn using a ruler. It should also be
noted that the coloring by Paul Little is some of the best I have seen. It’s lush and highly detailed, yet complements
the line art exceptionally well instead of drawing attention away from it.
It's all very well done, but that damn monkey is my favorite part, hands down.
7/10 – The pacing and storytelling are both very well
executed in many areas and page composition is well done throughout the
book.
Overall: 6/10 – This
may be one in which you wait for the trade to come out to pick it up, but I
would suggest picking it up one way or another.
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