Kevin Reviews His Weekly Singles #12

100 Bullets #92
At this point, I should be well and truly immune to Brian Azzarello’s dialogue-from-one-scene-paralleling-another trick, but this issue has him making a virtuoso performance of that very thing. At this point, I’m enjoying this more for the on-page techniques being employed than any of the story elements. It’s almost like pulling out a four-or-five minute section of a really good jazz improv and going “Yeah, that’s the stuff.”

Doktor Sleepless #7
There’s a fairly clever riff on the film adaptation of V For Vendetta that serves as a metaphor for the series as a whole very nicely: yes, we’ve done this all before, but sometimes things are worth doing again, differently. The old ways don’t work like they should; the new ways may not work, but we’re trying. Sleepless may owe a lot to its predecessor Transmetropolitan, but it’s poking at different concerns that are more relevant to the moment. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m getting used to it or Ivan Rodriguez’s art is improving, but I’m starting to enjoy his slightly-stiff, documentarian way to laying out and telling Ellis’s script.

Jack Staff #17
With The Butler, Paul Grist may have finally gotten his stab at the Eisner award for Most British Character Ever. I love how deceptively slight single issues of Jack Staff can be with; little perfectly-formed slices of pop entertainment that are at first glance a bit of candyfloss until you get a look at the larger picture being formed. Grist is creating a complete British comics universe from whole cloth and while he certainly owes a bit to Jack Kirby and Frank Hampson, there’s a lot to be said for the man’s ability to synthesize and recombine the past into something that’s very individual.

Local #12
Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly’s series about one woman’s self-discovery shouldn’t be the sort of comic I like. It’s frequently self-indulgent and a bit too self-aware for my tastes; very little is resolved within an individual installment; and, let’s face it, off-schedule comics piss me off an awful lot, particularly when it’s a limited series. That said, Wood and Kelly manage to zero in with the final issue, creating a thematic and narrative finale that hits every point it needs to while giving things just enough room to breathe. This is going to be a satisfying read when it’s all collected and another example in my ever-expanding “Let’s just get rid of the Graphic Novel section and shelve these books in the appropriate prose section” argument.

Madman Atomic Comics #9
Hey, kids! Beautiful visuals marred by sophomoric psychobabble! Check it out! (Do not check it out. This was my last issue for a reason.)

Young Liars #4
Where 100 Bullets takes the dark, studious approach to telling a crime story, Lapham’s story is so over the top, so cartoonish, that it’s occasionally hard to believe he’s getting by with it, especially at Vertigo, home of DMZ and Very Serious Sandman-Related Crossovers. Then one remembers that Army of Love is out there, doing to the war what this title does to Tarantino and his ilk, and it all makes a bit more sense. Lapham’s dense, funny scripting and ability to cram eight panels onto a page effortlessly makes this one of the more rewarding monthly reads out there and serves as an example of serial comics storytelling that rewards on both an individual and collective basis.