Radiant Comics

I’m back from the comic shop this week and I got four new comics plus a soft cover collection:

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

”The New York Five” by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly

This book is a sequel to “The New Your Four” which was published by DC Comics “Minx” line of comics that were supposed to be aimed at women. That line is no longer being published so this one came out under DC’s “Vertigo” banner. Like the first volume it’s the story of five young women trying to make it through their freshman year at NYU.

This book tries very hard to capture the flavor of being young in New York City and it succeeds. The artwork is quite good and Kelly must have done a lot of research to capture the locations and varied fashions so well. Often in comics everyday people are drawn in generic clothing and it doesn’t work for me. Here each girl, though not rich and into fashion, had specific style and no one looked bland.

The storytelling was also good and though the art was in black and white it was richer than most artwork. Ryan used zip-a-tone throughout the book to create a lively palette of greys. Since the days of physical sheets of zip-a-tone having passed us by I can only assume that he did all the tone work on the computer. That means he could have gone with more solid greys but liked the texture the dots added. It was a good choice.

The story of five young women living life in not for everyone but I liked it. Though not incredibly differentiated each women is different and has a different story going on. Some are good at school and some aren’t. They’re thrown together by the school like most freshman are so they’re not friends but trying to be so. It’s an interesting dynamic.

Overall I’d say this book was well written with some terrific art. If you’re into something other than super-heroes, horror, or fantasy then check this story out.