A Few Books I Wanted To Like, But Couldn't

Unlike some in online comics discussion, I don't buy books that I'm not looking forward to in some way. I don't expect everything will be high art, but I'm at least interested in the story or characters. I don't consider the purchase price of a comic to be an all-ages pass to Snarkland: The Amusement Park. I also don't generally write up books I don't like. I'd just rather not spend more time on them.

This past week, though, I picked up a few books that ... stung. Books that I eagerly anticipated, but that left me cold for one reason or another.

• The Book Of Lost Souls #1
  What did not leave me cold was the gorgeous work of Colleen Doran. It's stunning and tells the story better than it deserves. I suppose I've been mistaken about J. Michael Straczynski all these years, as I frankly has no idea he was 17 year old goth who writes bad poetry and worse songs. He tricked me by producing the best Sci-Fi show ever to hit the airwaves in Babylon 5, but reveals his true smudged-black-mascara self in The Book Of Lost Souls. Troubled, Byronic Jonathan is persecuted by the world for being too smart and too sensitive and is handed a magical book that saves him from suicide by sending him through time. The script is filled out by cryptic speech, cat-fancy, and biblical reference. It's straight from the notebook scribblings of a Robert Smith wannabe, and has all the narrative drive of a dirge. It's nonsense .... but it is beautiful nonsense.
  
  


• Loveless #1
  I love me a good Western: Deadwood, Unforgiven, Blood Meridian. I've missed out on 100 Bullets, and really wanted to fall in love with Loveless: to get in on the ground floor of a new Western renaissance and a new Azzarello comic in one fell swoop. That was surely hampered by this mess of a first issue where I really had a hard time puzzling out what was going on. Frusin is using such seep shadow and mystery in each panel that the atmosphere is great, but we can't see enough of the similar character faces to get the cast straight. It's a minor problem, though, compared to Azzarello's impenetrable exposition. One major problem, to me, is that I don't know where we are. The town's called Blackwater, that much is made clear ... but in a story set just after the Civil War, it's vitally important that we know it's geography. It appears set in some vague, mythical "West", but that's impossible to pull off when also trying to deal with the political realities of the Reconstruction. There is an interlude with unsavory Union soldiers looking for a "Boyd Johnson" that appears completely unrelated to the events of the rest of the story. Finally, there is a "twist" ending that strains credulity as it tries too hard to set you up for the shocker.


• Solo #7
  I am a big fan of Mike Allred's work on Madman and Red Rocket 7. I love the energy and vibrancy that he (and wife/colorist Laura Allred) bring to the page. I love the kitsch and the joy and the fun. So why wouldn't I love his issue of Solo? The problem is that while his love for DC's Silver Age is open and honest, it grows tiresome quickly. In the "fun" pieces, there's none of the subversiveness that made Madman so appealing, and his "message" piece ("Batman A-Go-Go") is mawkish and repetitive. I understand the sentiment that the DCU (and Batman in particular) has gotten too dark, but unremitting camp and sunshine isn't the answer, either. As serious artistic statements go, "everything was so much better back then" is not something I can take seriously. The whole book was one-note and very strident in it's obsessive focus on the single kinds of DCU that Allred wants to see. It's gorgeous art, but the heavy-handed message overwhelmed the fun in this one.
  
  
• Jack Cross #3
  It's like some intricate thought experiment or Zen koan: Is it possible that Warren Ellis could write a book so bad, so unspeakably boring, that even I would give up on it? The answer of course is Jack Cross. The nice thing is that I'm in good company, as it appears Ellis himself has given up on Jack Cross. It has absolutely none of the crispness of Ellis, none of the crackle. It's lifeless, and Gary Erskine's stiff pencils sure don't help matters. I don't really know what the "hook" of the book is, and I still am baffled by its placement in the mainstream DCU.

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