Comics I Bought: October 16, 2008
I’m back from the comic shop this week and I got one new comic plus a trade paperback collection:
And now for a review of something I’ve read recently.
I was a fan of the both the “Buffy” and “Angel” TV shows. I’ve been picking up the new Dark Horse “Buffy Season Eight” comic but not the IDW “Angel – After the Fall” (Season Five) one. Four bucks for one of IDW’s monthlies is too much money for me to spend on a single comic. I’ll wait and pay the same to get it in hardcover. With a lot of extras in the collection too.
So I’ve finally purchased the hardcover collection and given it a read. In the last episode of the TV show Angel and his gang of heroes left us with a cliff hanger as a whole gaggle of monsters and demons were loosed on them and the city of Los Angeles. In the beginning of this series we discover that a little time has passed since we last saw our heroes and all of the city of Los Angeles and its residents now reside in hell. All sorts of monsters run the place and the human’s are enslaved by them.
We are slowly introduced to the old gang from the TV show and shown how they are adapting to their new surroundings. Angel is trying to save as many people as he can from a lot of different demons and their harsh rule. And somehow the fact the L.A. is now in hell is all Angel’s fault. That story hasn’t quite been revealed yet.
The main problem with this book is the art. It’s not horrible. Most of the likenesses are good which can be a problem in a book based on actors but generally isn’t here. It’s the storytelling. It’s too confusing. Following what the hell is going on is a chore. The coloring doesn’t help either. It just makes things murkier. Not clearer. I’m also not a fan of the sort of shapeless monsters the artist draws. They are clearly not his strong suit and that’s a problem in a book where all the villains are monsters.
Though I enjoyed reading about the further adventures of Angel and the gang this is certainly a flawed series. I’ll probably pick up the second volume but it isn’t good enough to recommend to someone who is not an Angel fan. I’d say it’s an Angel fan only pick up.
I agree with you completely on After The Fall… In fact, I think I hate the art far more than you do as I don’t even think most of the likenesses are on on target… Depending on whether he had the correct photo angle, the look is sometimes completely off.
Licensed books are tricky to pull off for the best of artists… Mediocre one’s usually fail miserably. It seems to me that the most successful licensees fall into two camps… Those who use nothing but photo reference and stick to using that rather than “freehand” anything and those who go totally cartoony and ignore likenesses entirely (but still maintain consistency in their characters)… Al Williamson’s brilliant job on the Empire Strikes Back is a perfect example of the former while the more recent version of The Evil Dead (forgot the artist’s name – but he did a good job) is a good example of the latter.