Seekers of the Weird #3 – Review

By: Brandon Seifert (story), Filipe Andrade (art), Jean-Francois Beaulieu (colors)

The Story: It’s hard to unionize when you’re at the very bottom of the chain of life.

The Review: Principles can sure be a drag to live by, huh? Where this comic book reviewing business is concerned, I have a principle that I stick to a new series for at least a whole arc before Dropping it. It just seems unfair to expect a monthly title to have its act together immediately; some titles need a few months to find their voices. But there have been times when I’m so dispirited by a series after just one or two issues that I’m tempted to break my self-imposed rule.

I’ve been especially tempted by Seekers of the Weird, which was a bit of a hard sell to begin with and has only proven a mediocre performer since then. One of my primary considerations in deciding whether to keep a series on my pull list is whether it brings anything new to the table, if it feels different from the ever-increasing pile of comics I’m already reading. Seekers has consistently fallen short of original, much less distinguishing itself from the pack.

This issue almost breaks the trend, with an actual explanation of what the Coffin Clock is and why it has such importance within the story. There’s even something novel about the idea of trapping a Reaper—the “Reaper King,” in this case—“inside a crystalized moment of time.” Had you gotten material like this from the very start, and more of it, you’d probably have a very different sentiment about this title’s long-term prospects.

But even here, the Coffin Clock fascination is just a brief respite from what is mostly banality. I’m talking, of course, about the Mushroom People, creatures whose appearance strongly suggest the dancing ‘shrooms in the Tchaikovsky portion of Fantasia. The scene where Melody and Maxwell commune with the fungi is supposed to be heartwarming, a sign of the kids’ spunkiness, or something. But really, when you get right down to it, it’s Seifert trying to convince us that Melody’s laziness (“I really don’t like working in Mom and Dad’s store, okay?”) is comparable to the Mushroom People’s indentured servitude.

Besides the general weakness of Seifert’s ideas, the execution leaves something to be desired as well. For whatever reason, either impatience or a shortage of pages, the pacing in this issue is rushed and a bit erratic. Seifert skips past certain scenes and fails to land others, then blasts through the kids’ encounter with Efrain Fenton Whetstone, Chief Warden, cycling through the traditional stages of misunderstanding, connection, and betrayal in just a few pages. It’s rather predictable in a kiddie-oriented story like this one: family always wins out over well-meaning strangers concerned about the big picture, and of course the seemingly callous behavior of the black sheep is actually deep caring in disguise. As Roland explains his initial reluctance to tell his niece and nephew the truth of what’s happening, “…then you would’ve worried. You would’ve spent this whole week afraid you were doing the wrong thing.”

And as Melody so succinctly puts it, “So?”

Seekers isn’t helped by the fact that Karl Moline, its strongest asset, has been removed Admittedly, Andrade’s art fits in the hyperactive, juvenile world of Seekers far better than it ever did in Captain Marvel, although there are still a few panels where his stretchy style comes to bizarre results: faces elongate to the point of looking inhuman, figures are reduced to their most rudimentary forms, sometimes disappearing under Beaulieu’s colors altogether. Overall, the visual effect is fine for this kind of title, but it’s not a draw in itself.

Conclusion: A tolerable sort of entertainment, if you’ve got nothing else. Fortunately, I’ve got plenty of else to spend my time with instead. Dropped.

Grade: C+

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: – I’m sure the Mushroom People are nonplussed to find themselves abandoned the moment after they fetch the table Maxwell and Melody asked for, especially after all that labor-union talk.

Seekers of the Weird #2 – Review

By: Brandon Seifert (story), Karl Moline (pencils), Rick Magyar (inks), Jean-Francois Beaulieu (colors)

The Story: Never mix reading with lacrosse.

The Review: As you could probably tell, I wasn’t all that impressed with the first issue of this series.  This isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker; plenty of stories need an issue or two—or more—before they get their sea legs.  You don’t always have to take a running leap from the very beginning, so long as you can prove that the premise or the characters are interesting enough to see how they come along.  Seekers of the Weird didn’t quite manage that.

Even more troubling, the second issue isn’t much of an improvement, either.  From the character side of things, Melody, Maxwell, and Roland haven’t gotten any more personable, remaining as flat as they were initially rendered.  Maybe this is the “All Ages” curse rearing its head, but Melody and Maxwell seem particularly generic as tomboy and bookworm.  When Roland explains their mission going forward, Maxwell remarks nervously, “This sounds like a lot of…exercise.”

“And homework,” adds a petulant Melody. (Later, in the Museum’s library, she stares in dismay at all the books around her and cries, “You did mean homework.  Boo!”)

Seekers of the Weird #1 – Review

By: Brandon Seifert (story), Karl Moline (pencils), Rick Magyar (inks), Jean-Francois Beaulieu (colors)

The Story: We’re going to the Museum of the Weird!  Because we can’t afford Disneyland!

The Review: As an Orange County resident, I’ve had my share of Disneyland trips, and much as I appreciate the magic and fun at work there, it’s hard not to see through the highly manicured, studio-set quality of the place.  The various theme parks are not so much original works of imagination as they are amalgamations of their respective genres: adventure, sci-fi, western, fantasy, etc.  At best, Disneyland offers backdrops for stories, not stories themselves.

So it strikes me as a little ill-conceived that someone would attempt to use Disneyland as a source of inspiration for not just one story, but a whole ongoing series.  Talk about craven commercialism.  Still, there is a dearth of pure adventure titles on the market right now, and if there’s one thing Disney has proven pretty darn good at, it’s in delivering pure adventure, without any overly complicated strings attached.  Turns out, though, that you can complicate things by making them too simple, too.

Witch Doctor: Malpractice #4 – Review

By: Brandon Seifert (writer), Lukas Ketner (art), Andy Troy (colors)

The Story: With Penny out of action and Dr. Morrow fatally ill, it’s up to “everyman” Eric Gast to save the day.

Quick review: The Witch Doctor series has climbed to a pretty high point in my monthly reading stack.  It’s one of those rare comics that I just KNOW is going to be good before I open it up.  The story will always be clever and funny and the art will always be sumptuous.  As such, it’s one of the few comics that I just sink into and read without a lot of note-taking about the direction of the plot, the plausibility of characters’ actions or flaws in the art.  That simplicity doesn’t mean it’s “the best” comic out there; there are a lot of comics I enjoy like The Unwritten or The Walking Dead or Punk Rock Jesus that cover some challenging material and make you “work for it”.  Witch Doctor is more like Saga: Just sit back and enjoy the ride.