Comic Review - KISS #1

After weeks of average to downright terrible comics to review, I came into this week with very high hopes based on not only my love of the source material, but also with an expectation that really, it couldn't get any worse.  I lucked out this week because, right there on the shelf was KISS #1.  Now let me be frank with you, I was going to pick this one up anyway.  I have been a fan of KISS comics almost as long as I have been a fan of KISS (which is quite a while).  I have the image series from the late nineties (Psycho Circus with the awesome Angel Medina art) as well as the Dark Horse series from five or six years ago (it was short lived but it I enjoyed it).  You may think that this is a biased review based on the subject matter alone, but rest assured that this review will be just as thorough as any other. 

Cover- 

There were multiple covers yet again, but the one that I chose (and my favorite by far) was cover A by Nick Runge.  It was a take on the Dressed to Kill album cover, which coincidentally is the name of the first story arc.  I loved the palette and design of the cover.  It wasn't too flashy, and had more of a painted tone to it.  It was very appropriate for the feel of the series as this is not a traditional flashy super hero with capes series.  As you will see the series takes place in 1929, and not only the clothes but also the way it was painted as well as the overall design of the cover lends itself to the era that it is supposed to be set in.

9/10 - The cover is awesome.  The understated, muted quality of the colors, while something I enjoy, does not pop off the shelf like a cover should.  In fact the only thing that really does pop is the KISS logo (maybe this is by design) but it is still effective and entertaining so conventional wisdom be damned.

Story- 

The story is basic good versus evil.  The first issue does a good setup job and introduces us to the main characters, both good and bad.  We get to see the human hosts for the "four who are one" also known as the members of KISS.  The most interesting thing about this book is that it is not a reboot of the KISS mythos per se.  This actually takes every past series and past parts of the various stories (except for KISS meets Archie) and incorporates them into the current plotline seamlessly.  

It's like looking into a scrapbook of my KISS comic reading past.

It uses the ideas in many of the other books, even though they are from different publishers and different decades and incorporates them into the story here.  The story also has a multitude of in-jokes and references that only KISS fans would really understand.  Sometimes they don't blend too well into the story itself (the main female character is named "she"?) Being the KISS fan that I am though, I got most of the in-jokes, such as the name of the villain is "Wicked" Lester McGhee, an amalgamation of the Paul and Gene’s band that predated KISS (Wicked Lester) and Doc McGhee, their longtime manager.  There are also lyrics to the song "She" placed on the top and/or bottom margins of many of the pages that was not only a Wicked Lester song, but was also contained on the Dressed to Kill album.  I wonder if this will continue in subsequent issues.  I think it would be very interesting if they were able to incorporate the entire KISS catalogue (or most of it at least) before their time is done.  I think it is also very interesting that the main heroic force, even though he is not seen at all, is the Elder: largely regarded as the worst album in the discography, while the evil force, who is also not seen, is the Destroyer: largely regarded as one of the best albums in the discography.  While this probably does not actually mean anything, the irony is not lost on me. 

I think that one of the most effective plot devices in this story is that the reintroduction of the members of KISS to our timeline is started by a kiss from She to the Celestial’s host body.  I am sure that this is intentional, but it is also a nice touch by Chris Ryall to separate the story from the source material.  There is a real attempt made to make this a comic that stars the members of KISS as opposed to a KISS comic.  Because of his plot device of starting the action through a kiss, it even strips the title, ever so slightly, of its true meaning and repurposes it for use in his book.  Obviously everything is done with the band’s blessing I’m sure, but it’s a smart way to approach the series in my opinion.

There is not too much that I dislike about the writing in this book.  The cliffhanger at the end seems pretty convenient and predictable, but it’s not necessarily bad.  It does set up the next issue quite nicely and I like that we see the group getting right into the heart of the matter right away as opposed to toiling around in boring exposition for three issues.  If this was a Marvel book, the cliffhanger at the end would have come at the end of book four or five.  Bravo to Ryall for bucking modern trends.  

While I enjoy the designs of the monster/demon things, the fact that they are shot out of guns carried by the gangsters seems kind of cheesy.  It doesn’t ruin the story in any way, but I would have liked it more if the gangsters were just demons themselves, that would lend an air of mystery that the book could exploit in later issues “Was Al Capone just a monster/demon in disguise?” sort of thing.

9/10 – It sets up enough of the story to make me want to come back for more and does a great job of doing the setup and introduction of key characters as a number one issue should while also moving the story along and keeping me interested in the outcome.

Art-

The art by Jamal Igle is detailed and believable.  I really think that I am in Chicago at the height of prohibition because everything is well thought out and researched ahead of time.  

Now this is how you draw the first page of your comic book

All aspects are referenced from the guns to the clothes to the backgrounds, and there are a bunch of backgrounds.  I only counted a handful of panels that did not have backgrounds and it fed so seamlessly into the story that it did not matter to me.  

Between the tilted panel and the motion on the monsters and people, this panel shows expert craftsmanship.

I like the movement within and the composition of the panels as well.  Igle does not try and get too fancy with multiple overlapping panels and thirty panels per page, that kind of thing.  He just draws the scenes within the panels and lets the story and his storytelling really shine through.  I really enjoyed the coloring by Romulo Fajardo, Jr. on this as well.  It is not oversaturated or too dark, but it does play a large part in setting the mood and works incredibly well with the line art by invoking that feeling of nostalgia.

While the designs of the monster/demons were interesting and inspired, I felt that the human characters themselves lacked definition.  It was hard to tell one from the other for the most part as they all had a similar look.  Most of the characters were very well drawn and showed a lot of movement in and amongst their own forms, but the picture of She on the second page looks rather stiff, like Igle may have found a picture of that pose in a magazine and used it for the drawing.  Other than that it looks great.

Kinda stiff, and I'm not talking about the guy in the suit.

Great panel, so much going on, so full of reaction and background, things to look at and notice on subsequent read-throughs

10/10 – Backgrounds!  The art by Igle was great but that first page just keeps pulling me in.

Overall 9/10 – I know that it is hard to believe that a comic with the KISS name on it could be of such high quality, but besides the fact that it is not the same superhero drivel, it is just very well written and drawn and takes the best of both the Dark Horse and Psycho Circus series and incorporates them into an interesting setting.  I can’t wait until next month.    

oooo, a bouncy ball!

I apologize to everyone if the sight of that child gives you nightmares.

Parenting - An outsider's and insider's view

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The Wrong Kind

This joke was at least ten times funnier when he was alive.  

Stupid stingrays.

Good Idea?

Behold the genesis of the Eat @ Shrimpy's name!

Comic Review - The Legend of Oz The Wicked West #4

I’m not ashamed to say that I have a soft spot for “Fractured Fairytales” or anything that takes established characters and morphs them into a setting that is not exactly their comfort zone.  This includes the Shrek movies as well as the Fables series from DC (at least the first few years, I haven’t read them in a while).  I say this to tell you that I went in to The Legend of Oz with inflated expectations.  I really, really wanted this to blow me away.  I too have come up with various storylines that involve the characters of Oz and since mine are obviously unpublished I would love to find something that does justice to the source material.  Not only that but the publisher is Big Dog Ink and anytime a small publisher can knock one out of the park I am all for it. 

I really should have tempered my expectations because this was far from the masterpiece that I hoped it would be.

The Cover:

Yet more variant covers!  Gah!  For issue number four no less!  I don’t get it.  Anyway, it’s a fairly iconic looking image on cover “B” (the one I picked up) and even though it is not the best executed piece of art, the design of both the image as well as the cover itself, including title placement, is very well done.  Now the art itself, while it does some things right, it incorporates so many elements that are so incorrect that they are distracting (to me at least).  The thing is, as I noticed and jotted down some elements that were wrong, more things would emerge, it was like the worst set of dominoes ever. 

Let’s start with the positives:  The background, while not terribly involved is very well rendered and adds to the “wild west” feel that is the cornerstone of this book.  The horse is pretty well drawn and believable as a horse, and I like the flying monkey silhouettes in the background. 

Ok, now for the negatives:  While the horse is well drawn, I don’t understand the coloring on it.  Is it supposed to be three distinctly different colors?  Is that part of the plot somewhere?  If so than ok but right now it looks odd.  While I like the design for the witch, the execution in this area of the cover is really what ruined it for me.  Of course a lot of this you cannot see on the shelf amidst the other comics out this week, but once I actually look at the cover, especially for the sake of a review, I just have to stop and say “wait…what?”  A huge offender is the witch’s leg, the one in the stirrup that you can see.  It looks like it’s coming out of her body at a strange angle, plus it is inked far heavier than anything else on the page, making it look out of place.  I am not convinced that the foot/ankle placement is correct either but I’m not 100% positive on that as my horse riding experience is slim to none.  The color on the witch (the green on her face and hands) looks unnatural.  Not that green skin is natural at all, but if it was I doubt the highlights in the skin would be of a neon hue.  Finally, the glaring error on the witch is the white outline in areas on her body/clothing.  This would be fine if there were no black outlines on anything else, but as it stands now it just makes the witch look like a cutout that was placed over a backdrop.  Without that black line around her to anchor her to her settings it feels like she is floating off the page.  I can see what the artist (Nei Ruffino) was trying to do, but not only was the execution off, throwing white highlights on black would only make sense and only have the desired impact if the piece was entirely black and white with no color.

3/10 – for the design and the background, the character and coloring does absolutely nothing for me.

The Story:

There is a small blurb on the inside front cover that is supposed to catch you up on three issues worth of events.  It doesn’t.  The scene opens on what looks like three or four figures walking.  I assume one is Dorothy, and one looks like a lion, so I get that.  I had no idea who the guy on the horse was, and in the fourth panel an Indian girl shows up.  Eventually I assume that the Indian girl is supposed to be the scarecrow and the guy on the horse is the tinman (my only clue to this is that he has an axe, no other info is given).  In fact no one’s name is uttered except for the name Gale in reference to Dorothy a grand total of three times.  This is not a comic book, it is a chapter of a graphic novel.  I would like to think that if I read it all at once that it would be better, but after seeing it so far I don’t think I could bring myself to actually plunk down the money for a graphic novel.  I assume that the previous three issues are all setup and that this one is where everything happens, but not a whole hell of a lot does happen here.  The four travelers get attacked by bees, some flying monkeys die from bee stings (bees are equal-opportunity assholes) and the travelers get attacked by floating poppy petals.  There’s nothing that actually really happens aside from the fact that we find out that the scarecrow (if you can call her that) can take out all of her stuffing and survive.  Sure it’s useful but I don’t see much else about this comic that makes me excited to read another.

2/10 – I love the concept but the execution in this issue was not good.

The Art:

The coloring in this comic is decent, not too incredibly muddy like I see a lot nowadays. 

This gorilla, about halfway through the book has a pretty badass design to it.  Unfortunately that is where the positives end as Borges has trouble keeping the characters looking consistent from page to page and the uses of upshots on every page, while still trying to incorporate a horizon line just looks like we are seeing a giant so large that the curve of the earth is present under their feet.  And don’t get me started on this panel:

I really have a problem with the storytelling in this as well.  There are many panels and pages where I just have no idea what is actually supposed to be happening. 

It took a lot for me to figure out what is going on here.  I realize that it's hard to draw in terms of what is actually happening, but I get no context clues from the artwork here.  I have to try and figure it out through the next few pages.

Two things, one the finger/lighter in the last panel meld together around the striker/flame area.  That's just a poor job by the artist and colorist to clearly define what is where.  Also, it looked to me in the second panel like the monkeys were about to attack and yet they fall with a thud to the ground.  I don't know if the idea was to trick us, but if not then the storytelling needs to be a lot better.

This page comes right after the one I just posted but there is no indication that it is any later in the day except that the "Tinman" was able to build a fire.  At least give me some indication of a passage of time, even a caption box that says "later" would suffice.

I'm looking at a profile of a horse on a downshot, and the horse is not lying on the ground, what's wrong with that picture?

Is Dorothy walking or stretching?  What is going on with her arms?

The storytelling is ok here, as much as a montage can be, except for the big black hole that your eyes are naturally drawn to down at the bottom which halts any and all motion on the page.  Also, that Dorothy does not look like any other Dorothy in the book.

2/10 – That gorilla was awesome and that’s the only saving grace here.

Overall:  2/10 – I enjoy the fact that Big Dog Ink is trying to do a book with an established female heroine without turning it into blatant, poorly drawn cheesecake (Zenescope, I'm looking at you) but this was supposed to be so much better than it was, combining a “fractured fairytale” with a western. Alas it just wound up feeling like a poorly done comic from the late 1990s.  If you want a good tale about Oz, just pick up the Shanower/Young stuff from Marvel.  It’s not a reimagining or anything like that but it’s superb in its quality and execution.

Back the truck up

Oh the perks of being a director, trucks full of playboy models to dump in hot tubs at you leisure.

That's how it works, right?