Radiant Comics

I’m back from the comic shop this week and I got two new comic plus three hard cover collections. It’s been an expensive month:

And now for a review of something I’ve read recently.

I bought this series as it came out back in 2005 but I think this is the first time I’ve read it all together and not as a periodical.

“Little Star” is the story of everyday life over in the U.K. It’s main star is a man who, I think, is in his late twenties. He has a wife, a small daughter, a part time job, and is in the middle of looking for a new house for the family to live in. It’s an ordinary life with a lot going on.

I like the artwork and writing in “Little Star” and therefor it was a nice read but I have a problem with the overall theme of the book. That’s because I don’t think it has one. Besides, “We are people so we live our life” that is.

Our main protagonist Simon, the husband and father, works part time because he wants to be there for his daughter but also wants more money to buy a bigger new house. He wants it all like we all do. He seems to have a series of minor crisisses that lead him to no particular solution for anything.

There is also a whole sub-story going on where Simon is telling the story of creation, the Big Bang, as he tries to figure out his world. I think this is supposed to give us a sense of scale and put smaller human problems in perspective but I don’t know if it succeeds in doing that.

The story ended with Simon telling us about all the contradictory feelings he has about his life and family. It’s like a list with no insight so it falls flat. In the end Simon has no more notion about his life than we do. I’m not sure if that was the point of the story but if it was I found it a disappointing point.

In the end I found “Little Star” to be a mixed bag. I liked parts of it but as a whole it let me down. Most comics I read are forgettable attempts at a moment’s entertainment but at least “Little Star” tried to be about something. I appreciate that.