Herc #9 – Review

By: Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente (writers), David Hahn (penciller), Roy Richardson (inker), Jesus Aburtov (colorist)

The Story: Herc’s daddy issues interferes with his getting it on with the woman he loves.

The Review: After the completely baffling and apparently pointless crossover with Spider-Island, which seemed to include Herc only to sell some half-spider on half-spider intercourse, this title is set to get back to normal.  Problem is: you don’t know what “normal” is since the series has been plagued with Event tie-ins from day one.  With hardly a supporting cast and only a vague mission to protect Brooklyn, it almost feels like we’re back to where we started.

All Nighter #1 – Review

By: David Hahn (creator, writer, art) & Aditya Bidikar (letters)

The Story: A directionless 20-ish girl struggles with life problems in this slice of life comic.  She has a lousy on-again, off-again boyfriend, money problems, roommate problems and a couple of dark secrets….

What’s Good: Well, we really need more slice-of-life comics.  I really do enjoy my superheroes, but they are kinda the cheeseburgers of comics.  They are yummy, but if all you consume are superhero comics, you won’t be a very healthy comic reader; you’ll be fat, disgusting and sick (Hmmm….that sounds like a stereotype…).  Comics like All Nighter are like eating your salad because even when a slice-of-life comic isn’t “awesome”, just the change of pace in terms of narrative structure, themes and art design will make you a better comic reader (even if you do stick to the superhero path for the most part).

Slice of life comics will sink or swim based on how much the reader identifies with the main characters and how three-dimensional those characters are.  The degree of difficulty for these comics is pretty high because you can never save a sub-par story with a double-page spread of Hulk punching a giant gorilla in the face.  So, even though the characters in this comic didn’t remind me (personally) of my own early years or any of my friends, Hahn still does a great job of making the characters seem like real human beings who have their own individual strengths and weaknesses.

Art is also tremendously important to the theme of a comic like All Nighter.  Hahn has chosen to make the main character (Kit) sympathetic via the art.  We’re supposed to like her and kinda cheer for her to get her life together.  You can tell this because he makes her cute.  Hahn could have made different art choices (i.e. making Kit hard-edged and scowling and covered with nasty tattoos) and that would have completely changed the tenor of this comic book.  I also applaud the decision to go black-and-white.  This is a story that would not be enhanced by color.  You’re supposed to be paying attention to what the characters say and the expressions on their faces, not the rendered highlights on their cheeks.

Murderland #1 – Review

By: Stephen Scott (writer), David Hahn (art), Guillem Mari (colors)

The Story: An assassin lady who dresses up in disguise to kill her targets.

What’s Good: Not much.  There are a million silly, funny quips I could make, but that would be rude with a creator-owned book title like this one.  So let’s focus on the art, which is the best part of this comic.

The art reminds me a little bit of Oeming’s art in Powers.  It isn’t as good as Oeming’s and it isn’t quite the same, but it has that similar “Did you draw this with a Sharpie?” look to it that I enjoy.  Given that I might scream if I see another gritty/assassin book that is all photo-realistic, it was nice to see pretty good art on a story like this even if it did fail a little during the action scenes.

What’s Not So Good: The story is big-time confusing.  I have a standing personal rule that I don’t read message board comments before I review a comic here at WCBR so that what the reader is getting is my unpolluted opinion and not some group-think review.  And the only time I break that rule is when I read a comic like Murderland that just confused the hell out of me and I think there’s a chance that I just didn’t get it or read it properly.  So, I can say with confidence that this is a confusing comic…there’s not trick to it.  It might get better in future issues, but it didn’t work for me here.