The Obedient Adventures of the Superfisters
We are presented with a buffet this week; a comic book buffet of icky zombies, and goofy earth-saving mutant-types, and soul-bearing study abroad. Let's kick it off with Gray Horses, by Hope Larson (wife of Bryan Lee O'Malley, who's writing the fantastic "Scott Pilgrim" series). At first glance, the story and art might seem kinda simplistic -- the pictures are made up willowy, simple lines; and the characters are willowy, gentle people; and the plot is, well, we'd call it willowy but we're not sure what that means exactly, so we'll just say it's unassuming. Noémie is an exchange student who takes turns studying art, dreaming about confessing her past to a horse, and getting followed around by a mysterious flirty boy with a Polaroid camera. Meanwhile, she's also getting over a breakup, and making a new friend, and exploring a new city and taking naps in a cemetary.
Gray Horses is unpretentious and sweet-hearted -- in one scene, during a calm stroll Noémie hears a click, looks up to a bridge to see a familiar-looking boy taking her picture, then chases him until he makes an escape on a train. What's so adorable about the scene is the coy expression on the boy's face as his train pulls away; it's subtle -- only, like, four tiny lines differentiate it from his default-expression -- but it tells this whole story about who he is and how he feels. Great stuff.
After the jump: blood, guts, and more of Marvel's Underwear Perverts™.
Hey did you know that Marvel and DC think they OWN the word "superhero"? Seriously. They put TMs on the word every time they use it, and they'll send you a cease-and-desist if you put "superhero" in your own work. WTF? From now on, we'll be honoring BoingBoing's call to only refer to Marvel & DC characters as "underwear perverts." Even if the characters aren't wearing those spandexy outer-underwear costumes. Because after all they're probably still wearing underwear underneath their pants, and if they're not, isn't that even more perverted?
There's no indication of how most of the characters in "Nextwave" (by Stuart Immonen, and Warren Ellis at his silliest) wear their personal linens. Issue one of the adventure just launched and, man oh man, is it ridiculous. The story has something to do with a monster, and some evil Army guys, and a group of renegade superher -- er, we mean undieperverts -- but it's really all a big joke. When the Head Bad Guy wants to make a phone call, he wears a hat shaped like a giant telephone. Another character mocks someone else's hero-name -- "Photon" -- by saying, "Hello. I am a tiny insignificant particle. But down your guns or I'll bounce off you undetectably." Lollerskates!
We'd be more into it if the inhabitants of the story weren't such stereotypes. There's the furious crazed Army dude, and the renegade crimefighters, and the calmly sadistic chick in high-heeled boots, yawn yawn yawn. Jokes as funny as "Nextwave"'s deserve to be told by more interesting people than these.
Strange coincidence: the last word of issue 1 is "underpants." We totally forgot about that when we started writing about underwear perverts a few paragraphs ago.
And speaking of doing things by the book, check out The Abandoned by Ross Campbell. First, take everything you know about zombie stories, and, um, chisel it in stone because this book doesn't really change anything. They eat flesh, you have to crush their heads to kill them, let's all seek refuge together in the old abandoned building, OMG they're sneaking in through the windows, oh no I got bit what if I turn into a zombie ... and so on.
What's newish about The Abandoned are the survivors; a small band of surly teenage queers in the very rural south may be the last humans left on Earth. The mostly dykish group, who seem to be outfitted entirely in merchandise from Hot Topic, spend most of their time huddling in a makeshift fortress, contemplating their futures, flirting, and flipping out. Heroic strong-girl Rylie wants to get with Naomi, and when they're not graphically ripping holes in zombies they bat their eyes at each other in that sincere, MySpacey way that the under-20 set are so good at. It's a sweet break from the eyeball-popping.
Just don't expect an ending -- the story just ceases abruptly. If it was a movie, it would feel like the last ten minutes of the movie (where everything's tied together) got cut. And these people spend for EVER in the hiding-from-the-zombies part of the story, and the girls just seem so SCENEY with their liprings and emo hair and skull-n-crossbones tattoos. We criticise because we love, though; despite those shortcomings, the art is stupendous (it reminds us of tank girl with that whole pouty-crazy-punky girl thing), and it's a relief to read a comic with some well-balanced, sometimes-brave sometimes-flawed gays. If Ross ever gets around to writing an end to the story, we'd totally read it. Here's hoping.