Comic Review – Deathmatch #1

                Deathmatch has the interesting (and relatively overused) concept of pitting characters against one another in a winner-take-all fight, gladiator-style.  We are currently seeing this from Marvel in the form of Avengers Arena, though my embargo on Marvel titles has prevented me from actually reading it.  The main challenge that I can see here is getting the reader to care about the characters, especially in this instance where Paul Jenkins, the writer, has established detailed backstories for every combatant, but they are completely new to us. Sure, there are the archetypes, you can see the Superman character, the Thor character, even a patriotic character, though he looks a tad more armored up than I have ever seen Captain America.  Beyond the archetypes, these are all new characters, so Jenkins faces an uphill battle in terms of getting us to not only care about his take on an established plot device, but also care about a brand new set of characters that we have never met.  Being that this is a winner take all event (presumably) I am sure that Boom Studios (the publisher) would like us to have a rooting interest in a character or two as well to keep us coming back for more.

Cover:

                Cover A is by industry legend Whilce Portacio.  While the pose is dynamic, albeit a little silly (who really holds a gun like that?) it is a cover that is not only devoid of any semblance of relevance to the story contained in the interior, it’s also a bit misleading.  The premise of the book is that these characters fight to the death in a controlled environment while the other heroes and villains watch them on giant screens.  This cover makes it look like the patriotic guy has just murdered someone in cold blood in front of a live audience.  This may be foreshadowing to a later instance, but I have a feeling someone gave Whilce a quick rundown of the major plot-points and a couple character drawings and said “go to town”.  That may also explain the total lack of background.  The coloring is decent and does a good job of separating the foreground, middleground and background, but I have trouble getting over the deceptive nature of the narrative qualities in the cover itself. 

3/10- It’s a decent overall illustration but the lack of background combined with the misleading nature of any narrative in the cover is a shame.  I expect more from my superstar artists.

Story:

                I trust Paul Jenkins.  I have read his Marvel work from back in the day (Inhumans, Sentry) mainly for Jae Lee’s art, but those were incredible miniseries in all aspects.  I came into this expecting a good story at least, regardless of the obvious challenges that lie ahead.  What I got instead, from the first page, was a great story, with interesting characters.  Jenkins does an incredible job of weaving character’s backstories in with the action of the main story, getting me to care about the characters and feel genuinely uneasy upon the conclusion of the second match.  The best part is that this is not just a pair them up and let them fight book.  There is a certain amount of story going on behind the scenes that contributes to the mystery of who is behind setting these people up and why that is just as intriguing as the characters themselves.  I would like to see how he continues this as the “main” character of this issue, Dragonfly, was the winner of the first match.  Whether Jenkins continues to follow his story or not is going to determine how successful this turns out to be.  It would be difficult, in my opinion, to jump from character to character without one, across the board, main character that we can identify with, and in a series that is supposedly seeing 31 characters die, that would be hard to do. 

8/10- I am cautiously optimistic that in the hands of Jenkins this will turn out great, but there are a lot of roadblocks to navigate before I proclaim this a sure-fire hit, regardless of how well this one issue was written. 

Art:

                Carlos Magno exudes a kind of Carlos D’Anda quality in his art that I really enjoy.  The fact that it is so detailed while being so clean just makes for an incredible reading experience.  The storytelling is decent and is in no way distracting.  The backgrounds and characters are both wonderfully rendered.  Hell, he even does a great job on the characters that are not entirely human.  I am generally someone that prefers a more cartoony/animated feel to my comic art (seriously, if I wanted to look at photographs I would look at photographs) but this art is both realistic with just enough of a European flair to it to make it stand out.  Honestly, I think I would have rather seen the art in just black and white as opposed to color as some of the smaller details are lost in the coloring.  This is not the colorist’s fault as Michael Garland does a good job himself, but more of a personal preference thing. 

9/10- The art is great, probably my favorite part of the book.  Coming in cold without seeing any of the interior art, I wasn’t expecting much but was more than pleasantly surprised.

Overall:  8/10- This is well worth the $1 for the first issue and if it keeps up the pace and quality in subsequent issues it will be well worth the $3.99 that it is sure to go up to. 

Comic Review: Fanboys vs. Zombies #7

            This week on our October parade of “horror” comics we come to Fanboys vs. Zombies from publisher Boom! Comics.  The creative team on this title is writer Sam Humphries, and artists Jerry Gaylord and Bryan Turner.  Let’s dive right in shall we?

Cover:

            I picked up Cover A (the one my shop had) and actually thought it was a cool illustration.  It obviously had nothing specifically to do with the story aside from the fact that these people were going to fight zombies, but the cover is impressive as an illustration.  I like the use of the triangle design and the coloring is muted but effective.  It is not as muddy as other colors but instead uses a subdued palette to give kind of an old-timey feel to the cover (even though, again, that has nothing to do with the interior contents).  It took me a second but I did notice the cameo appearance of Cammy from Street Fighter (though it’s a comic about fanboys so I suppose that is probably just a cosplay girl).  I also enjoy the thin holding lines used by the artist in the characters.  This lets the great coloring job shine through even more.

8/10 - A good cover that doesn’t pop a whole lot on the shelf but has a solid illustration with nice coloring and design.

Story:

            The story itself is a little hard to follow, especially at first.  There is a guy on the first page named Drake that looks a lot like Schwarzenegger’s character in The Terminator, but we don’t see him again, so his significance is lost on me.  This comic could have really benefitted from a couple text boxes explaining what was going on, as we see a woman surrounded by zombies and then immediately we see some Napoleon Dynamite-looking guy opening up a comic convention.  I thought, at first, that this was a flashback to the beginning of the series, until you turn the page and see that the convention is starting up a couple floors below the zombie apocalypse.  Ummm, ok.  I’ll suspend my belief for right now I guess.  In this comic convention is, naturally, a guy that looks like Robert Kirkman of Walking Dead fame.  Ok, that’s cool.  The pop culture references aren’t lost on me.  Case in point, the two main evil henchmen look like Bebop and Rocksteady from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!  So, do we get to see these guys all fight a horde of zombies to save themselves from becoming dinner?  Nope.  They fight each other, all because Napoleon Dynamite wants the scoop on where some girl that is now friends with our heroes, but used to be on a sitcom.  She is out amongst the zombies and he wants her to be the main attraction at his show.  A show that is taking place amongst a zombie apocalypse.  Yup, you heard me right.  It’s getting harder to suspend my belief. 

            The fight ends by a bad guy holding one of the heroes at gunpoint, until a female hero shoots him in the head (remember this part).  She then runs away and everyone else is captured and thrown into a jail cell that is not latched so, surprise surprise, the heroes escape.  This is how Napoleon Dynamite wants it to play out though so that they can lead him to the actress out fighting for her life amongst zombies that have now turned into her biggest fans.  Ok, we’ll go over this bit by bit.  Napoleon threw them in jail so that he could set them free and follow them.  He probably could have let them go anyway, and just saved a step, but whatever, he’s no Bond villain.  The zombies recognize the actress?  A nice moment of levity I guess, especially since it’s the only way to explain how a defenseless person can survive amongst a horde of zombies for an entire issue.

            The Kirkman, zombie comic writer character, that has been a whining sniveling mess the entire issue, finally gets a backbone and lets our heroes know just why he is needed in their little troupe of zombie fighters.  This abrupt about face for the character is either something that the writer planned and may have alluded to in the previous six issues, or it is just an easy plot switch that the writer used so that the survivors could all stay together.  I’m not sure which it is yet. 

            Then we turn back to our defenseless TV star that is no longer defenseless as she has a six shooter against a horde of zombies.  Yup.  A six shooter.  That means six bullets against a horde.  Shit, they don’t even screw you over that much in zombie video games.  The zombies flock into a mall though, instead of eating the dumbass with the pea-shooter, hmm, how convenient. 

            We now take a slight detour to the girl that shot the bad guy.  She is actually having a moment of despair because she took a life (I told you to remember that part).  With so many heroes out there in the comic-verse that appear to have no problem hurting or killing another human being, this moment is a welcome revelation.  It is only one page, but it speaks volumes to the kind of character that she is, and how “real” Humphries wants to write her as.  Best part of the book, hands down.

5/10 – The lack of real, tangible motivation for these characters throws a shadow over what could have been a pretty entertaining story.  Showing the actual effect that taking a human life can have on someone is a high point, as well as the pop-culture references, but the convenience factor of much of the plot just feels a tad forced for me (almost as if it was a Marvel Crossover comic).

Art:

            I love cartoony art.  Not only can you tell that it was not traced (I think we all know of whom I am referring) but it seems to me that more of the personality of the artist can show through when they can be more expressive without having to worry about how many heads tall their characters are.  That being said, Gaylord looks like he took a page out of the Campbell/Ramos playbook and drew it incredibly fast.  The art is not terrible at all, and in some places (the zombies especially) I really enjoy it.  Everything but the zombies tends to look rushed.  There are a couple standout panels but overall the book has a feeling like it was cranked out in a week.  Part of this is a lack of substantial backgrounds, but also the artwork itself feels sketchy and not quite done.  This could be more the fault of the inker than the penciller, but regardless, the art has suffered.

Best part of the book:  The Zombies!

Also there's Kirkman, Rocksteady and Bebop.

This is an example of a well done panel...

...Followed by one that looks like it was mailed in (look at those teeth)

This is a whole quality page, unfortunately other pages suffered.

And this is why I like cartoony books.  Look at the expression!

5/10 – Some good, some bad.  The worst part is that it looks like they sacrificed some panels/pages for others.

Overall:

5/10 – This may be better in trade paperback format as the current “serial” styled comic has trouble making sense in the 22 page format.