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December 01, 2005

Subway Reading: Chicanos and Perhapanauts

Go figure: Wednesday is always a good day for spotting comic book readers on the subway. Yesterday I spied with my little eye somebody reading that Giant-Size Invaders book. And I forgot to mention that, two weeks on the plane to Vegas, I saw somebody reading The Watchmen.

Chicanos #1 - I was fully prepared to overlook IDW's reprint of this European comic, but then I noticed Eduardo Risso's name on the cover. I picked it up for a flip-through, and sure enough, the 100 Bullets artist handled the visuals for this black and white crime story. I'm a huge fan of Risso's; he never fails to come up with inventive layouts, and his beautiful conflation of the three-dimensional demands of narrative storytelling with the 2-D design aspects of the printed page is without peer. He did not disappoint in this book. In fact, the lack of color brought out subtle variations in his line weight that I either never noticed or that simply aren't there in the colored 100 Bullets. His figures writhe and twist across the page, arranged in a tapestry of flowing forms. Risso pushes the ugliness of his characters' faces almost to the point of grotesquerie, stopping just short enough that their character and personality pop off the page before you read a single line of dialogue.

That strength of Risso's is the saving grace for this book, because the one-dimensional characters and thin story would not hold up without it. Carlos Trillo's script does have high points; the crimelord's incompetent flunkies make for solid comic relief and the unexpectedly offbeat look of the detective protagonist is cleverly used as an important and original plot point. The uneven dialogue, however, is sometimes so awkward and clunky that it becomes a major distraction. I suspect that this shortcoming can be traced back to poor translation, but that fact doesn't improve the reading experience.

Another thing that's not in this book's favor is the $4 cover price for a 24-page black and white comic. Fans of Risso's masterful graphic storytelling will get their money's worth, but the script has room for improvement and the awkward translation doesn't help.

Perhapanauts #1 - My dismissal of this book in last week's preview post was a little too premature. I picked it up on a whim and was pleasantly surprised. Todd Dezago and Craig Rousseau self-published a couple of issues before the series was picked up by Dark Horse, and their comfort and familiarity with these characters is clear from the cast's easy banter and consistent characterization. I unfairly compared the book to Hellboy and B.P.R.D.; while there is some conceptual overlap, the tone of Perhapanauts is considerably more light-hearted. The slapstick elements comfortably co-exist with the action and science fiction, a trick that is not always easy to pull off.

Craig Rousseau's stylized, clean-line art is somewhat reminiscent of Mike Mignola's and Mike Oeming's styles, but it's tempered with an animator's streamlined minimalism. The layouts sometimes err on the side of too conservative, but at least Rousseau recognizes his strengths and capitalizes on them.

I suppose that complaint about the art could be extended to the rest of the book: as tight and smooth as it is, there is a palpable feeling of unachieved potential. I can definitely see this property as an animated cartoon, but that's as much an indictment of its play-it-safe sheen as a compliment for its breezy fun and smooth humor.

Posted by jdonelson_nyc at December 1, 2005 01:45 PM

Comments

Posted by: Ed Cunard at December 1, 2005 02:23 PM

Posted by: Sucky at December 1, 2005 09:38 PM

Posted by: Spencer Carnage at December 8, 2005 05:35 PM

Posted by: todd dezago at January 2, 2006 02:14 PM