Morning,
A cold start this morning on my commute into London. I have a pretty hefty workload on the run up to Christmas. No days off, rare breathing breaks, relentless deadlines and all to do with the world going to shit and the uneducated being louder voices than ever before.
Surely I’m not the only person who has said to a mate or a colleague this week, “What the fuck is going on, has everyone been on the crazy cakes?”
Meanwhile in our little shrinking world we’ve had weeks and months of retailers telling fans and comics companies that they are really struggling. Shops closing, shop owners crying on camera as they announce the end of their business, open letters, columns, podcasts, posts and more. Only to have Tom Brevoort tell them not to worry and everything is OK. I’m sure that’ll pay their rent. As I imagine him turning to his computer and changing the new release from $3.99 to $4.99 … solved. Phew, everyone calm down.
When you can barely buy four comics for £20 this week you’ll excuse me for being cynical. When I review comics on the two podcasts I’ll regularly quote the price of the issue as it is becoming more and more important to the listener/buyer/reader these days.
So, back to the Wednesday task at hand.
Fav.
A weird week of just mostly m’eh comics. So this one got me straightaway with the art and the bleak strangeness of the story.
Stefan Cardoselli has an original and fresh style and I’ve been following him for a few years on Instagram. This issue is full of quirk and weird and had me snapshotting pages to share with buddies. It works particularly well as it co-joins his art with a world-ending science fiction theme. Look at the little details he adds. The coffee mug with the smiling face and the plaster holding it together all the while he has a dome helmet on and couldn’t possibly drink it. Glorious. Takes me back to the days of Brendan McCarthy and Brett Ewins. I read this on the Global Comix app and on the train.
Least Fav.
Listen, I’m not part of any wanky online lynch mob, from either side of the many sides of that imaginary fence. So after seeing all the dramarama about this release I thought I’d give this issue a fair crack. Make my own mind up. That’s a thing we can do as adults.
I didn’t get that far.
It’s not as terrible as some people may make out. It’s also not that good. I read it on the DC App so glad I didn’t spend a silly amount of cash on it. The art is serviceable, albeit a little static and some action to show off that art in the first few pages may have been nice and improved my thoughts. But opening on a page of a newspaper set me up for some low expectations.
Then this panel hit me, I closed the comic and went to another for my morning read in this coffee shop I now sit in.
What is it with overwriting in comics these days. The above two panels are ruined by balloons crashing their comics party. It’s painful! I gave up twice reading it through and have only now read it for review purposes. Hahahahahahahahahaha, that dialogue is fucking terrible. I walked.
I feel like I’ve been conned by a fake online argument in an empty room…
Again.
See you next week.
Many thanks for reading.
Never Iron Anything - The Comics Review Website 