Chew volume 7: Bad Apples
This is probably the weakest volume of the series so far
which is a pretty big disappointment since every single volume has been a joy
to read. The volume doesn’t really advance the story. Chew has recently reached its halfway point and “Bad Apples” seems
to be setting up the story for the second half of the series. It doesn’t feel
like much of a continuation of the first half of the series because the momentum
sort of just . . . stops.
A considerable amount of Chew has to do with world building. John Layman and Rob Guillory
have done a phenomenal job building a world in which the sale and consumption
of chicken is an illegal activity up until this particular volume. The whole
thing feels like it was done without any real effort. It’s repeating things
that have previously been established but it’s dialled up a few notches. We
know there several different kind of superpowers based on but, but on a single
page the writer and artist create nearly a dozen new powers. The food related
superpowers are approaching self-satirical heights. It’s completely unnecessary
and each new power is less impressive than the other. I’m disappointed because
I expected so much more story and a lot less frivolous world building and cheap
gags. One of the things that have made Chew
so good up to this point was the deft balance between humour and supernatural
food related drama.
Challengers of the Unknown Must Die!
Challengers of the
Unknown Must Die! Is the first published comic work of Jeph Loeb and the
first collaboration between Loeb and artist Tim Sale. That alone makes this an
interesting comic to read since we get to experience the writer and artist
cutting their teeth on one of their earliest comics work. The story takes place
in the aftermath of an attack on Challengers Mountain: they retire. Loeb and
Sale give us the story of a group forcibly starting retirement, what they did
after and then, how they came back out of retirement. It’s a nice little story
but it’s something we’ve seen before: deconstruction of a superhero team
followed by its reconstruction.
One of the highlights of the comic is Tim Sale’s art. I’ve always liked his art ever since the first time I read Batman: The Long Halloween but he’s been good ever since he started working in comics professionally. He really did a great job with the Challs. The most impressive aspect of his art on the book is his stellar page and panel designs. Challengers of the Unknown Must Die! is one of the few comics that revels in being a comic and telling the story in a way only comics can.
Sale inks,
presumably, with a pen. His lines are the same thickness throughout the comic.
It’s a pretty thin line and it doesn’t matter how close or far an object or a
character is the thickness of the line remains the same. It gives it a loose
and casual feel. This isn’t an overly polished digital image. There is
something classic about Sale’s style it’s put to good use here. I can’t help
thinking of reasons for which I admire his art. He uses very few straight lines;
the whole comic has a nice fluidity of movement and looseness to the action. Superman’s
guest appearance in one of the issues is a rare example of Sale’s obvious use
of straight lines (such a square jaw). The art is interesting from the first
page to the last but I can’t say the same about the writing. Loeb starts off
with a really strong story but the whole thing loses it’s footing with the last
couple of issues. For someone first published work, Loeb should be proud of his
efforts since he wrote a several compelling issues reviving one of the earliest
super science hero teams. Having Tim Sale on art duties surely helped too. It’s
too bad this was only an 8 issue mini-series since I think it had the potential
for an interesting ongoing series.
Lost Cat by Jason
Jason is one of my favourite comic creators. There is
something about his deadpan, anthropomorphic animal style that really works for
me. Despite the minimal facial expression and body language, his art is very
expressive. He manages to do things with his art that he shouldn’t be able to
do, it just shouldn’t work. The emotion his characters can convey is staggering
and the feeling he can imbue in the reader is equally impressive.
Lost Cat is one
of his longer workers. I’m not sure if it’s the longest so far but it’s being advertised
as such. Sure, the page count is very high compared to his previous comics but
his pages follow a strict four panel grid. I’m sure that some of his shorter 48
pages comics with nine panels on each page contain just as much story but the
extra breathing room Jason gives Lost Cat
helps with the story he’s telling.
One of the recurring themes in Jason’s work is
loneliness. He does it so well in Lost
Cat. One of the pivotal scenes in the book is a forty page long
conversation between two astonishingly lonely people who, for the first time in
their lives, feel connected to another individual. Lost Cat isn’t about a lost cat at all. It’s about a missed opportunity;
it’s about missing out on the love of a lifetime because of mundane reasons
like having cold feet. It’s a comic that ponders the deeper meanings of love
and live and Jason brings his unique perspective it, aliens and all.
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