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Snapshots for 4/6/05
There's no way that Don and I can cover all of the material we have for review in full reviews, so these capsule reviews will offer some brief comments on other recent releases.
DEADSHOT #5
by Christos N. Gage, Steven Cummings & Jimmy Palmiotti (DC Comics)
 The Deadshot miniseries ends on a bittersweet note, more happy than I expected but with the right downbeat tone that keeps with Lawton's past and personality. There's a slight logic flaw in that Lawton could have had his cake and eaten it too had he just let his girlfriend and daughter in on the plan and disappeared with them, but that leaves no Deadshot in the DC Universe, and Lawton' own psychotic inability to be happy is enough of a justification for why he didn't go with that plan. At any rate, Gage and Cummings do some terrific stuff with Deadshot facing off with a number of DC's B-list (and lower) supervillains, but the heart of the issue for me comes at the beginning (when Floyd says goodbye to the normal life he's giving up) and the end (when he sums up the lasting effects this detour has had on his psyche with four words). This has been a terrific little tale of a character I didn't think could support a one shot, let alone a miniseries, and I hope that it gets a trade collection and that we'll see more comics work from Gage. 8/10
THE GIFT #1 DIRECTOR'S CUT
by Raven Gregory, Tyler Kirkham, Marco Galli & Douglas Paszkiewicz (Image Comics)
 I previously reviewed The Gift and found it to be very much not my kind of thing, and a reread of the story of issue one didn't really change my opinion. It's solidly crafted, and certainly it's good enough that I can see why it earned its "bump up" from self-publishing to Image, but I really wasn't crazy about the art or the broadly drawn characters. What surprised me in this Director's Cut, though, was the backup story by Raven Gregory and Arsenic Lullaby's Pazkiewicz, a hilarious and brutal tale of the trials and tribulations of self-publishing that reads like Fortune & Glory for the comics publishing world. Gregory's warts and all honest look at the process from idea to publication, and Paszkiewicz's wry, ironic sense of humor in the art, makes for a really great story, enough that I would almost recommend the Director's Cut of The Gift #1 for that tale alone. I'm still not a big fan of The Gift, but I will be on the lookout for future work from Raven Gregory, based on some of the extras in this special edition of issue one. 6/10
THE LAST SANE COWBOY
by Daniel Merlin Goodbrey (E-merl.com)
 I know Goodbrey's name from his work on the unusual online comic Sixgun at CBR, but I wasn't really sure what to expect from his minicomic The Last Sane Cowboy. Turns out that like Sixgun, it's a little strange, a little unconventional and really entertaining. It feels more like a glimpse of something cool than a complete story, although the story is in fact complete in this issue, which is another way of saying that it definitely grabbed my attention. Goodbrey's art is all shadows and stark shapes, kind of like what you'd get from manipulating computer images, but I can't entirely tell whether he's working in that way or using hand-drawn images. At any rate, the story relies more on icons than on standard storytelling, with bizarre imagery like floating skulls or scorpions with cowboy hats, but that art style works, and the atmosphere of Insanity is very effectively communicated in Goodbrey's script. It's sort of a folk tale done in the style of Grant Morrison, with insanity as a physical location as well as a state of mind and the demons of the id represented in solid form. It's intriguing and strange and very much worth looking up. 8/10
TRUE STORY SWEAR TO GOD #13
by Tom Beland (Clib's Boy Comics)
 True Story Swear to God is still a romance comic, but as of the last issue, it has also shifted into being a comic about the frustrations of moving, which include homesickness, a disconnection from your usual routine and support mechanism and a general upheaval in your life that is never easy. As always, it's easy to relate to and yet unique to Beland's experiences, and he perfectly blends the specific culture shock of Puerto Rico with the general irritation of a new locale into an often-funny, always poignant window into that time in his life. Beland really captures the frustrations of daily life, and though the circumstances might be more unusual (and thus very funny), it's easy to relate to the potential boss who undervalues your talents or the tech support where you can't ever seem to talk to a real person, and it's very easy to relate to taking all of that out on your new home even if you don't realize your doing it. Beland, as always, provides an honest look at his life, and so we get the reasons behind his behavior, but as he admits in the narration, that doesn't make it any less unpleasant, and the reader gets both a view into Beland's head and the view he couldn't get, the one that Lily has, thanks to glances from her in the art or other storytelling cues. It's masterful storytelling and it's a story you won't get anywhere else. If you haven't tried TSSTG because you're "not all that into romance comics," give it another try now, because the story has shifted just slightly, but everything that made the book great is still the same. 10/10
THE WALKING DEAD #17
by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard & Cliff Rathburn (Image Comics)
 After the shocks and twists of the last couple issues of Walking Dead, the bar for the series as a whole has been raised, and #17 is the first issue in a few months that didn't just blow me away. It's still really damn good, though, and features an amazing explosion of violence and rage and frustration at the end that is going to send some shockwaves through one of the big relationships in the book. I confess that I was firmly in Rick's camp on this one, and didn't even see his actions as shocking so much as completely justified, but the amount of violence (and the presence of the children) presented by Adlard and Rathburn goes a long way towards showing why folks are upset, and would be upset if such a thing were to happen in real life. Amidst the core of the issue, which is all about finding the girls' killer and punishing him, there are some interesting subplots and cute moments, including an adorable scene between Carl and Sophia, a well-earned private moment between Tyreese and Carol and some worrying developments between Dex and... uh, the other guy who isn't named in this issue. Hmm, maybe with this many characters, that character guide Kirkman talks about in the letter column is a good idea. 8/10
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