I realized that I went and mentioned Larry Young's Proof Of Concept without telling you that you should spend your $13 on it.
You should spend your $13 on it, even if I think it's a bit of a failure.
For those of you who haven't read the reviews by guys like Mike Sterling and Dorian Wright, this is a clever way for Larry to stroke his own ego1 a bit while letting newcomers (some of whom, I understand, were picked by some sort of thing at CBR that I paid no attention to at all) take a whack at that comic book thing. The framework, drawn by Kieron Dwyer in a gorgeous style I've not seen from him before, is Larry on the phone with his powerful Comic Book Lawyer, pitching ideas for comics. We get short bursts of pure concept2, which is what Young does best. Unfortunately, this means we never see a complete story in this collection of rough ideas and I could probably argue that his Astronauts In Trouble work also suffers from the same lack of story. He knows how to set things up brilliantly, but I fear that's all he can do. This is why I'm convinced that he's a much better editor and publisher than writer.
I like Larry Young quite a lot. The comic book business needs Larry much more than we need Rob "What Are Ankles?" Liefeld or Mark "Hey, How's My Ego Looking?" Millar. We need people willing to put out things like the fuck-off action of Couscous Express and The Couriers as well as more reflective works like the properly-acclaimed DEMO. I just wish that someone would ask him "...and then?" and try to help him better hammer down his own stories.
Buy this book. I think it's a failure worth investing in because it will give Larry yanqui dollars for more books like Matt Fraction's The Last Of The Independents and Tales From Fish Camp by Danielle Henderson. Support people doing things that won't make you want to give up reading comics.
1I think he'd agree with this. It's a vanity project, but it's not like The Clown Who Laughed or that tragic 5th season of Perfect Strangers, where Bronson Pinchot's hubris dragged the series down into political commentary that was aimed above the target audience.
2The individual stories have been better covered by others - I wanted to talk about the book.
