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BLIND MICE: BOOK ONE TPB
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Blind Mice Comics
Writer/Artist: Eric Mengel
Price: $9.95 US/$12.95 CAN |
Blind Mice is odd, there's no getting around that. Mengel spells out in the introduction that these aren't his first comics, that in fact he passed up including hundreds of pages because they were early work, but it's still clear that Blind Mice is very much a work in progress, a book that is still figuring out what it wants to be. Mengel's approach includes elements of science-fiction, slice-of-life, humor, adventure and other genres. It most strongly resembles a comic that is basically written for Mengel by Mengel, a place for him to work out things in his head, to pay homage to his beloved hometown and the people and places in it who have done him right, and in that respect, I suppose I found it more than a little self-indulgent. Self-indulgent or not, though, it's also pretty interesting and sporadically funny, and definitely different from anything else I've read.
It is clear in reading Blind Mice that Mengel doesn't have a clear mission statement for the book. It reads essentially like Mengel wants to be doing comics, but he doesn't necessarily have a big idea for the medium, he just likes doing the work. The result is something of a scattershot book in terms of plot and tone, and I confess that the lack of any real plot drove me up a wall. However, there's something to be said for enthusiasm backed by talent, and Mengel has plenty of both. I really like his three fictional lead characters (Ocho, Petey and Pitbull) and the sort of laid back, daily life vibe of the book is definitely intriguing most of the time. Mengel's story focuses on the mundane aspects of real life, such as working a job, going to bars and restaurants and just sort of "hanging out," as much as it does the wilder elements of his concepts like alien worlds or vigilante justice.
Unfortunately, good character moments alone can't quite carry the book for me. I'm interested in seeing how Ocho's job works out, or how Petey's doomed job search develops, but there's never really a sense that it matters in any way. Each issue of Blind Mice sort of goes off in its own direction, and there's not a lot in the way of continuous story or consequences from one story to another. It's a genial enough book, but it lacks the punch of a plot that matters. Mengel has great talent for moment-to-moment writing, but the book is frustratingly (although perhaps deliberately) unstructured.
There is also more than a little bit of the sense that Mengel is just kind of goofing off, doing comics, rather than really investing himself in the story. This comes about partly from the lack of plot, but it also shows up in Mengel's mixture of real life and fantasy. The story of Ocho, an alien, taking on a bodyguard job at Mengel's favorite local bar, is a pretty good mixture of these two elements. Page upon page of Mengel thinking to himself about the problems he has had and how he's dealt with them isn't. The constant shout-outs to local people or places that have supported him and his work also started to grate on my nerves. It feels like in trying to pay homage to his hometown and include his own life in the process, Mengel has derailed Blind Mice from being a more ambitious comic, and instead turned it into something more self-indulgent and inaccessible to those who aren't "inside" Mengel's town and circle of friends.
This isn't an unforgivable sin, but it does give Blind Mice the vibe of being that "cute comic" that a local indy artist works on, rather than a serious project aimed at a wider audience. Which is a shame, because Mengel certainly has the talent to carry himself further. His art style is much better than you'd expect from someone who basically started drawing because his artists kept flaking out on him. It's fairly simplistic in some regards, and doesn't quite work when Mengel goes for the more outrageous elements like Ocho's axe or the visits we get to his homeworld, but there's some strong storytelling there and really good comedic timing, and his lead characters have strong, distinctive visuals. 5/10
This comic book was not among this week's new releases.
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