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As much as I dig Bachalo's idiosynchratic style, he's far too often completely opaque in his layouts, and he often oversaturates the image with inks, which are then colored far too darkly. Honestly, I've not seen anything by him that wasn't completely muddy since the early days of GENERATION X, and even then I might have been cutting him slack because I loved his work on GHOST RIDER 2099 so much.
This week I broke a long comics fast, as there were a number of things I really wanted that all came out at the same time. So what the hell, I get a discount, so here's what I ate ramen to afford:
POWER PACK #1: Actually, I hate the writing on this. I am, admittedly, biased, since I wanted to write a POWER PACK series that would have been in continuity and gone in a completely different direction than this. I'm such an old school fan, one of those cultists for whom it came into their lives at just the right time and is the reason I'm still reading comics. But it's so fucking annoying that every time they try to resurrect this book they feel the need to go directly to a fight with the Snarks. Hello? Has anyone actually READ the original series? The Snarks used to represent this dreaded menace; now they're like a termite infestation that returns every spring. The art is nice and clean, and if this were marketed somewhere other than comic shops it might have a chance at success, but since that ain't happening I'm not holding my breath. Still, it's so unfathomable that the majors can't market anything that's not manga-flavored to kids; had I had my shot with this book I'd have gone in a different direction visually, too.
DEATH JR.: I don't know if it's a function of Ted Naifeh's personality or that the only books that Slave Labor seems to put out anymore are all gothy in some way, but seeing him on this book just makes me wish he'd do more COURTNEY CRUMRIN or a sequel to HOW LOATHSOME. He's a big talent and despite that he's got a spindly, vaguely Tim Burtonesque style without being Jhonen Vasquezish, I so wish to see him do something not predictably goth. Of course, goths buy comics, so you can't really fault him for working to his strengths. But he's one of those people I think could do just about anything, so why doesn't he?
BEAR #7: Haven't read it yet. I have no idea why this gets filed under 'goth,' even if it is from SLG. He even rags on goths in this issue. This is so consistently hoohah funny. I like to read it aloud in funny voices.
DEEP FRIED v.2 #2: Also haven't read it yet. I'm not crazy about the longform stories Youngbluth has started doing with Beepo, Roadkill and Squints; I prefer if he's going to do longer narratives that he break them up over sequential issues. Variety is one of his great strengths. Just the back cover of this issue, a spoof of Super Nintendo-era ads for peripherals, sold me on the issue.
There were also a couple things I wanted to get but finances dictated I put back:
TRUE STORY, SWEAR TO GOD #12: Tom Beland is a very fine gentleman who gave me the rough for a page out of #7 or 8 which looks as good as the finished product, signed, for having been a solid customer since SPX 2000. That's classy. His comics are candid, funny and truthful, about the star-crossed way in which he met his future wife and left his entire world behind to go to Puerto Rico to be with her. There is definitely a niche waiting to be filled for romance comics that aren't schmaltz, and right now he'd seem to be one of the few in that niche.
GREAT LAKES AVENGERS #1: Dan Slott is a bud. A short, round bud. He makes me scream laughing, and he knows entirely too much about the Marvel U. When I suggested to him he write an unwinnable battle between Mr. Immortal and Madcap, he scoffed and pulled outta his chubby ass a far more obscure character that he correctly surmised would make for a more interesting matchup. The gag in this first ish with the classified ad and one of the respondants is just gold. That, and "The Quinjetta," followed by Monkey Joe's disclaimer. Just fucking GOLD.
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