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GRIP: THE STRANGE WORLD OF MEN #1
"Grip of Fear Part One"
Not Recommended (1/10)
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DC Comics/Vertigo imprint
Writer/Artist: Gilbert Hernandez
Colors: Pamela Rambo & Zylonol
Letters: John Costanza
Editor: Shelly Bond
Price: $2.50 US/$4.25 CAN |
My immediate
reaction: What the hell was that? Then I went back and reread, as I often do, to
get a better feel before I started reviewing. My second reaction was no, really,
what the hell was that?
This is apparently the story
of a man who is an amnesiac and has strange powers and friends who remember him
and a lot of people looking for him. I say apparently because I really couldn't
make heads or tails of what was going on. Hernandez's artwork is clean and clear
enough, but the story seems like something that Grant Morrison would write off
as "too fucking weird."
Traditionally, fiction gives
us some sort of point-of-view character, and something that we can relate to.
Now I can, vaguely, relate to the idea of having no memory and trying to figure
out what has happened to you, if only from nightmares. However, I can't relate
to the vast cast of weirdos that Hernandez throws at us, where even the sweet
old lady who should serve as a touchstone for normalcy has an acid-scarred dog
and a grandson who happens to be a detective. Every time we're starting to get
an inkling of what's going on, another batch of characters walks onstage and
does something inscrutable.
Hernandez's artwork is
intriguing, very distinctive and readable, and I particularly enjoyed the
caricature-ish appearance of Sammy and Tigre, even though I can't quite suss out
why they look that way and others don't. And Hernandez has a great feel for
character design, giving each of his characters different body types, wardrobes
and hairstyles that are often quite unusual.
However, often quite unusual
describes much of the book, and not in a good way. Presumably all these various
characters and strange goings-on are meant to intrigue the reader, but Hernandez
piles it on so heavily that by the end I just didn't care. If I were the
protagonist, I probably would have wound up gibbering in a corner on about page
12 when it all started to pile up way too fast.
I honestly have no idea what
is going on in this comic. And what's worse, I simply don't care.
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