Thursday, May 9, 2013

Comic Review: I Love Trouble #5

                Whoever said that monkeys sell comics (was it Mort Weisinger?  I think it was…) was spot on.  Guess what was on the cover of I Love Trouble #5?  A monkey!



 Cover:
                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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