Confession time... this is the first issue of Marville I've sampled. I wasn't expecting much from the book and wasn't about to open my wallet for it. Neither was Randy, mind you, but he got a review copy. I didn't. Nothing I'd heard about the first couple of issues did anything to change my mind. So here I sat, with the third issue in front of me. What the hell, I figured I'd take a look-see.
I have to admit, the book is not at all what I expected. Of course, judging from the "Previously..." blurb, this third issue has about as much in common with the first two as George W. Bush has in common with Stephen Hawking. The subject matter here is actually challenging and thought-provoking, but unfortunately, the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
Al and gal pals Lucy and Mickey jump in Al's homemade time machine in a search for meaning; in other words, they traipse off looking for God. Instead, they discover a young guy named Jack, a non-interfering entity who may or may not be God. Jack shows them the origin of life on Earth and hints that the miracle of life is also inherently a tragedy, that life gives way to new life, that the old is consumed by the new in a never-ending cycle.
I've never seen Bright's art look as good as it does here. Judging from the credits, the book was colored directly from his pencils, and the result is artwork that boasts a painted look while maintaining Bright's style quite well. It's a shame, though, that the dialogue is splayed across his artwork, obscuring the characters and other plot elements. It's terribly intrusive. To make matters worse, whoever was in charge of copy editing didn't do a good job of it. Maybe it's due to my background in journalism (and experience in copy editing myself), but glaring mistakes -- from "quite" instead of "quiet" to repeated inconsistencies in capitalization -- often kicked me right out of the story.
Oh, and then there's the cover. Maybe the goal is to poke fun at cheesecake, titillating cover artwork, but instead of mocking it, Horn and others involved in cover design simply support the irksome trend.
Though the decision to keep the cast of four naked for much of the issue comes off as blatantly gratuitous, I have to admit that Lucy and Mickey brought a lot of personality to the book. They represent the opposing viewpoints about creation. Is it all a random convergence of natural scientific laws, or is there some sort of guiding hand in it all? Al -- the supposed "star" of the title -- is surprisingly uninvolved in the debate, though.
This is some pretty lofty subject matter for what is purported to be a satirical comedy series. There's a couple of good gags at the beginning of the book, but they're soon set aside for Jack's loquacious examination of the origin of life. Jemas's point -- that theories of creationism and evolution are not mutually exclusive -- is a strong one, but some awkward storytelling fails to convey the point.
