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NEW COMICS REVIEWS
Paris
Andi Watson, Simon Gane (SLG Publishing)
Setting his latest story in Paris in the
1950s was a smart move on the part of writer
Andi Watson; he plays on fanciful notions of
both the place and the era, and gets away
with an exaggerated tale about an American
expatriate art student living in Paris and mak
ing ends meet any way possible. Juliet is hired
by a stuffy English aristocrat to paint a por
trait of her niece Deborah.
Watson—a writer/artist from England who
for this book wrote the script while Simon
Gane handled the art—has always tripped up
a bit with American speech patterns, and a
few clunky phrases pop up in Juliet's dialogue.
But again, as Paris is an idealized depiction
of an over-romanticized city, a little over-
Americanization coming from a Brit is forgiv
able, particularly when
many of the characters in
the book play on familiar
caricatures.
Gane wisely slows
the pace of his art down
when necessary to set
the scene, and he also
takes a few surprising
detours with large estab
lishing shots, abandon
ing typical perspective
and proportion to deliver
a snapshot of a Parisian
scene—a cafe, a street,
etc.—packed with
background detail and
atmosphere. A story set
in Paris in the '50s comes
with the identifiers for
romance already built
in—the jazz clubs, the
scarves, the Louvre, the
cigarettes—but Gane creates a vibrance and
vitality among all the easy cliches. His sharp,
monochromatic art isn't too far off from that
of Watson's, but Gane is able to tighten up his
angular tendencies and render some detailed
and even soft artwork when a scene calls for
a little care. The art's understated, the writing
deft, and, for being set in as unsubtly roman
tic a place as Paris, Pahs is a surprisingly and
satisfyingly subtle romance.
Faker
Mike Carey, Jock (Vertigo)
There's a strong appeal to Faker, a story of
five desperate Midwestern college kids who
unwittingty ingest a psychotropic substance
that may or may not bring their imaginations
into real life. The trippy, existentially chal
lenging ideas behind Mike Carey's script are
compelling, but ultimately they're overshad
owed by characters who come across as too
stylized, too "cool" and too overwritten.
Jessie Kidby, Faker's protagonist, for
example, is a problematic character, another
in a long line of oversexed, one-dimensional
young female characters who use their sexual
ity—and only their sexuality—to manipulate
others; what sets Kidby apart, though, is
that predictable submerged memories of an
abusive past actually do play a necessary role
in the advancement of the plot as the group
slowly realizes the true nature of what's going
on around them. Still, that doesn't coun
terbalance the easy cliches and overbearing
unpleasantness of the main characters.
Faker's strength lies with its artwork,
provided by mono-monikered Scottish artist
Jock. His stark figures and flat colors allow for
a lot of impressionistic work, and his panel
design is creative, his pacing deliberate. Jock
specializes in cutting down the details from
his artwork and leaving only what's necessary
for maximum emotional impact. Faker is no
different, but pretty pictures and a promising
premise can't compensate for unsympathetic,
uninteresting main characters.
Water Baby
Ross Campbell (Minx)
What's most frustrating about Water Baby
is that its main protagonist is an entertaining
and interesting girl, but she spends the entire
book only reacting to situations, never taking
any action of her own.
It's frustrating to real
ize that once the book
comes to a close Brody, a
teenage Florida girl who
loves surfing but loses
a leg to a shark, has yet
to become proactive in
anything she does.
Part of Brody's passive
nature is understand
able—she's a teenager,
she's confused about the
return of an ex-boyfriend,
her relationship with her
friend Louisa is compli
cated—but it's difficult
to have a sympathetic
main character who does
so little.
Ross Campbell's art
work is stronger than
his script, and he's able
to draw teenage girls who look like teenage
girls—and teenage girls who don't all look like
one another. And when Brody dreams about
her shark attack, Campbell's artwork shines
with a hallucinatory weirdness. Water Baby's
an entertaining read, but not satisfying, lack
ing any true resolution from either a plot per
spective or an emotional one.
Chris Hassiotis
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