Quick Hit Reviews – Week of April 27, 2011

The last Wednesday of the month is also know as “The Week When Marvel Tries to Kill Us” by releasing everything they possibly can so that we can all throw our backs out as we leave the comic shop.

New York Five #4 – Here is an early contender for “miniseries of the year” and I’m going to be highly pissed when it gets left off those lists in favor of a bunch of miniseries that end in December because comic fans have the attention span of a mosquito.  This whole series has been a really touching slice-of-life drama as we follow these young ladies in the spring semester of their freshman year at NYU.  This issue brought things home in a major way.  For one thing, someone dies and the characters are left to ponder on the transitory nature of their lives: They’re all moving on in life and the little group of friends is moving apart.  We’ve all been there and had friends who seemed like the most important things in our lives before something changed because someone took a new job or moved or signed up for classes at a different time of day from you, and you just drift apart.  That’s life and Brian Wood really nails that sentiment.  I’ve gushed on Ryan Kelly’s art before (and own an original page from issue #1), but not only does he do a tremendous job on the young ladies who are the center of this book, but he also makes “The City” a co-starring character itself.  This is a “must read” for everyone and especially so for anyone with any affinity for New York.  Grade: A 

Velocity #4 – Oh la la!  Kenneth Rocafort is a beast!  This series wraps up a very good and straightforward tale of Velocity racing against the clock to save her Cyberforce teammates from a deadly virus.  Every panel that Rocafort draws of Velocity just oozes energy.  She just looks fast even when she is standing still.  He’s got a really powerful understanding of human anatomy and muscle groups.  Sunny Gho does a pretty nice job of coloring too.  Even though the story was really simple, I think Ron Marz deserves some credit.  It’s almost like he knew that this series would take almost a year to come out and kept it simple so that each time all you had to remember was “race against the clock to save teammates.”  If you’re an art fan, this is a must-buy in collected form.  Grade: B+

Morning Glories #9 – This title continues to be confusing, but in a very good way.  Sometimes I get highly annoyed by books that are being mysterious and opaque (see: Batman, Inc.), but I think Nick Spencer is pulling off the confusion because we actually have a hope of learning some answers.  In this issue, we follow one of the students, Jun, and see his back story, how the Morning Glories Academy became interested in him and what lengths they were willing to go to in order to get him as a student.  Yikes!  Once again, I can’t wait for next month.  I’ve heard a lot of folks complain about the art in Morning Glories, but I really don’t get it.  It’s true that it isn’t JH Williams or Mike Kaluta, but I think Eisma is doing a wonderful job with telling the story in terms of his panels and layouts.  Grade: B+

FF #2 – The story here is pretty top notch as the FF has to fix Doom’s brain damage and it has all the moralistic tropes where there are opportunities to kill Doom that are passed upon.  Fortunately, Hickman doesn’t spend too much time dwelling on the morals because the idea of the FF seriously killing Doom is just preposterous.  And, we get a pretty cool cliffhanger ending featuring Valeria who is having a really nice run as a character under Hickman’s pen.  The only thing holding this back for me is Epting’s art.  It isn’t that I think Epting is a poor artist, but I just don’t think his realistic style is suited for FF.  I’d rather see Epting illustrate a crime story and let us have an artist who is more cartoonist on FF.  It doesn’t have to be outlandish cartooning. Let’s just have someone like Dale Eaglesham.  Grade: B

New York Five #3 – Review

By: Brian Wood (writer), Ryan Kelly (art), Jared K. Fletcher (letters), Gregory Lockard (assistant editor) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: A few of our freshmen co-eds at NYU have life-changing experiences.

What’s Good: Again this month, New York Five is really a showcase for Ryan Kelly’s art.  The story is good too, and I’ll get to that in a minute, but the art is so good that it overshadows the script.

Kelly is just a beast drawing architecture.  NYC comes alive under his pencil and pen and that is vitally important because The City is as much a character in this story as any of the young ladies.  I would love to know more about his process and if he is using some sort of photo-assist.  I wouldn’t hold it against him if he was because the end-result is incredible, but the only other option is that he doesn’t sleep because I can’t imagine how this could be a monthly book with this level of detail.  Or….it was all “in the can” before they solicited it?

The other great thing about Kelly’s artwork is that he can get his characters to act and emote without resorting to a cartoony art style.  Cartoony would never work with his buildings and architecture, but most artists who go for a more realistic style get more wooden characters and also have the stray panel where someone just looks funny.  This never happens with Kelly’s characters and he nails their faces and bodies from just about every angle possible.  Just amazing!

This reviewer is such an art whore that the story almost becomes an afterthought, but Wood is doing good work here too.  I’m a sucker for these young-women-coming-of-age, and if you like those types of stories, you’re going to love these characters.  They are all so lifelike and will all remind you in some way of people you’ve known in your life as these girls struggle with the transition from childhood to being an adult while also adjusting to life in the city.

Quick Hit Reviews – Week of February 23, 2011

Sometimes there are soooo many comics published in a given week (ahem….I’m looking at you Marvel) that despite the heroic efforts of the WCBR writing staff, we simply can’t give every comic a complete review.  Thus, the Quick Hit Reviews…

New York Five #2 – Wow is Ryan Kelly a great artist!  The story here is solid, slice of life stuff as we follow our four college freshmen as they adapt to life in NYC, but the star of this issue is Kelly’s art.  His character work is really strong as young ladies are all cute and express appropriate emotion, but his attention to the city around them in just incredible.  The city just feels alive. I really need to track down New York Four and I encourage everyone to check out this Vertigo series.  Kelly and Tommy Lee Edwards (on Turf) made a LOT of artist’s backgrounds look like dog food this week.  Grade: A-  — Dean Stell

X-Men: To Serve and Protect #4 – All I ask of an anthology series is to give me one really memorable story.  I almost don’t care if 3/4 of the issue is crap as long as I get that one stellar tale.  This issue has a BIG mission accomplished for Jed MacKay and Sheldon Vella’s story of Dazzler, Misty Knight & Colleen Wing engaged in roller derby death match involved a really wacky version of MODOK (Mental Organism Designed Only for Roller Derby!!).  Vella’s art and colors are just amazing.  Toss in a good finale to the Rockslide/Anole story that has woven through this anthology series and you’ve got a winner.  I love the X-office continues to publish these anthologies.  Grade: B+  — Dean Stell

New York Five #1 – Review

By: Brian Wood (writer), Ryan Kelly (art), Jared K. Fletcher (letters) & Shelly Bond (editor)

The Story: A bunch of young women who are freshmen at NYU deal with life in the city.

What’s Good: What a breath of fresh air this was!  You know how crummy you feel if you eat junk food for 4 days straight and then eat a nice fresh salad? New York Five is that salad.

This comic introduces us to four young women who are freshmen at NYU.  They’re sharing an apartment as they begin their spring semester and adapting to life in NYC.  These characters have all the issues and hang-ups that are typical for kids that age: boy problems, problems at school, family issues, home-sick, being almost-but-not-quite grown up, etc.  But rather than becoming a kinda comic version of Sex in the City, everything is presented in a much more real and down-to-Earth fashion.   Wood does a great job of portraying how important some of these problems can seem to a kid that age while also making it clear that none of these issues are life-and-death.  It’s all relative and most of us can remember when getting a bad grade in English was the end of the world even if it seems like small potatoes now.  I’ve never been shy admitting my love of comics about teenage girls coming of age (too many women in my life, I guess), and if you enjoy comics on the superhero side like Batgirl, Supergirl or Spider-girl or enjoy things like Love and Rockets you’ll love this issue.

I shudder to think how many pencils Ryan Kelly went through to illustrate this issue because it is sick how much detail is in these panels.  The outside panels show trees with intricate branches and all the cracks in the sidewalk.  The kitchen is full of cereal boxes, dish towels, magnets on the fridge, overflowing trash cans and such.  The architecture in the city is FULLY rendered.  My god is this art detailed!  And….it is black and white which is a huge bonus for me in a comic like this.  This is a realistic comic and things like bright RED hair or a GREEN sweater would detract from the story.  A few colorists might add to this story (Val Staples), but most would just screw it up.  Plus, when you have B&W art, the line work is just more detailed because the artist has to handle all of the contouring and shading themselves.  The girls are all cute without being over sexualized and that’s important because we’re supposed to care about them…. not be having fantasies about them.  This comic would be worth buying just for the art.