Happy #4 – Review

By: Grant Morrison (Writer), Darick Robertson (Artist), Tony Avina (Colorist)

The Story: Nick Sax gets his thoughts together and goes to save the day for his daughter Hailey and other children.

The Review: Grant Morrison is a tough writer to follow and to review. One second he’s the weird man that brought us The Invisibles and Doom Patrol, the writer that goes to the far-end of his own imagination, bringing us concepts that are thoroughly out of this world, while the other he’s the simple, yet efficacious person who brought us All Star Superman and WE3, more simplistic stories that are still rich with concepts, but are more down-to-earth in their executions.

With Happy, Morrison goes with the second option, for as much as a conceptual story this is, namely, an imaginary friend tries to bring a hired killer to save a little girl. It is fairly straightforward in its storytelling. Here, he seems to go in the same way that he went with WE3, writing a story that accentuates the artistic talent of his collaborator, with Frank Quitely being replaced by Darick Robertson.

Happy #3 – review

Grant Morrison (writer), Darick Robertson (artist) Tony Avina (colorist)

The story: Nick Sax gets to have an important conversation with Happy the Horse while Mr. Blue men get closer to him.

The Review: For a while, this title seemed to be Grant Morrison doing his very best to parody Garth Ennis, incorporating a heavy use of colorful language, harsh reality and violence in every issue. The one thing that made this something more than a clever parody was the title character himself: Happy the horse. With an unfettered optimism and a sense of fun, the inclusion of Happy to the impossibly grim situation of Nick Sax trouble made for an entertaining comic, but in this issue, we get some very important revelations and answers that elevate the title a bit.

One of these answers is just how Nick Sax became such a wreck. It is done in an intelligent way, showing various instances of his family and working life as a happy man before one single thing puts him in big trouble. The panels go at a steady pace, filling in with some choice dialogue from various moments that could be a little bit before and after what happens in these particular panels. This give us insight on how everything went wrong for Nick Sax just because of one mistake that attracted a boat load of trouble.

This answer gives way to another powerful scene where Nick Sax challenges Happy to finally see the harsh realities of life. As Happy sees this, it is disheartening to see the beacon of optimism that was Happy reduced to such a state. The comic makes us readers get plenty of truly emotional moments such as this, either through telling the tragic past of Nick Sax or the realization that life is not such fun after all by Happy the horse.

Happy #1 – Review

By: Grant Morrison (writer), Darick Robertson (artist), Richard P. Clark (colors) & Simon Bowland (letters)

The Story: An ex-cop-turned-assassin runs into trouble with the mob.

The Review: 

1. Morrison being foul. – On page one, we have the follow words (along with the number of times they appear): prick (1), cunt (3), pussies (1), dicks (1), assholes (1), shit (1), balls (1) & fucked/fucking (2). Then, by page 3 we have some hooker giving a weird dude in a bug costume a blowjob.  It’s like Grant Morrison had all these filthy thoughts pent up in his brain from doing Superman comics for the last year or so….and just HAD to spew them forth onto the page.  The whole point of creator-owned comics is that the creators can say/draw whatever they want and it’s nice to see a creator of Morrison’s caliber being completely raw.  Of course, it isn’t just rawness for the shock value…..this is a story about a down-and-out hitman and his trouble with mob.  There should be foul language, sex and brutal violence.

2. Filthy art. – Much as page one features all that profanity, it also features a nasty visual: a bum vomiting on the sidewalk as a dog lifts his leg and pees on the bum.  Again….it sets the tone for the issue/series.  It’s like Robertson saying, “This book is going to be kinda foul.  Just get used to it now.” and by starting off with a nasty image…..the rest of the issue isn’t as shocking.  But, “filthy” could also describe the artwork in general.  It’s very rough around the edges and that helps it convey the griminess of the settings and characters.

3. Clever protagonist. – After just one issue, you’ll love protagonist Nick Sax.  The trap he springs in the opening scene of the book is very bad-ass and sets him up as the kinda guy you would definitely not want to mess with.  Having seen that, it is totally conceivable that he could go up against the mob and survive the really horrible situation he finds himself in by the end of the issue.