Cry Havoc 1 (January 2016)

Cry Havoc #1Yeah, wrong Simon Spurrier. How common a name is Simon Spurrier? It seems somewhat specific. I suppose one could do some cross referencing via Google but whatever. I read this comic, Cry Havoc, because I thought it was the other Simon Spurrier writing with Ryan Kelly on art.

I’m pretty sure it’s the regular Ryan Kelly, though his colorists do a lot of work. He has three, one for each setting. The comic is the story of a punk violinist who gets bitten by a werewolf and goes to work for the American government. I think she might be British.

I think I’m going to keep reading it, even though none of the colorists complement Kelly’s art particularly well. The pop London stuff gets tired, the war stuff doesn’t look right. I suppose the “Red Place”–I can’t believe I’m going to try reading a werewolf comic. Good grief.

It’s almost okay. Spurrier takes himself way too seriously, but Cry Havoc is almost okay. What’s strange is how impersonal Kelly’s art comes across.

CREDITS

Dog Days; writer, Simon Spurrier; artist, Ryan Kelly; colorists, Nick Filardi, Lee Loughridge and Matt Wilson; letterer, Simon Bowland; publisher, Image Comics.

Letter 44 (2013) #21

Letter 44  21

Even with a fill-in artist (Ryan Kelly), Soule sticks to the Letter 44 standards. It’s a flashback issue, so he does a couple characters. It’s Letter 44 so there’s a lame cliffhanger.

The series didn’t always have lame cliffhangers. It used to have characters. When it had characters, those cliffhangers worked. Though I don’t think this one would work regardless. It’s some painfully obvious lionizing of one of the characters. Of course, this character doesn’t appear in his own flashback–I’m not hiding the name, I just can’t remember it–until those last few, bad pages. Otherwise, it’s good. The whole issue’s pretty good.

Kelly’s art matches the book’s unfortunate, cartoonish style, but Kelly’s got his composition and depth figured out. There are detail problems, but no visual flow ones.

Besides the lionized guy, the other flashback is the mission astronomer. How did he get on the mission and so on. It’s interesting to compare to the army guy’s flashback because the latter is all about the recruiter, not the recruited. It’s a nice contrast and Soule takes them both seriously.

Clearly, Soule cares about Letter 44, which is what always makes it so frustrating when it never manages to boil above the mediocre level anymore.

Letter 44 21 (November 2015)

Letter 44 #21Even with a fill-in artist (Ryan Kelly), Soule sticks to the Letter 44 standards. It’s a flashback issue, so he does a couple characters. It’s Letter 44 so there’s a lame cliffhanger.

The series didn’t always have lame cliffhangers. It used to have characters. When it had characters, those cliffhangers worked. Though I don’t think this one would work regardless. It’s some painfully obvious lionizing of one of the characters. Of course, this character doesn’t appear in his own flashback–I’m not hiding the name, I just can’t remember it–until those last few, bad pages. Otherwise, it’s good. The whole issue’s pretty good.

Kelly’s art matches the book’s unfortunate, cartoonish style, but Kelly’s got his composition and depth figured out. There are detail problems, but no visual flow ones.

Besides the lionized guy, the other flashback is the mission astronomer. How did he get on the mission and so on. It’s interesting to compare to the army guy’s flashback because the latter is all about the recruiter, not the recruited. It’s a nice contrast and Soule takes them both seriously.

Clearly, Soule cares about Letter 44, which is what always makes it so frustrating when it never manages to boil above the mediocre level anymore.

CREDITS

Writer, Charles Soule; artist, Ryan Kelly; colorist, Dan Jackson; letterer, Crank!; editor, Robin Herrera; publisher, Oni Press.

Three 1 (October 2013)

285881 20131009112907 largeSo, in order to understand why Three has its title, I had to go read a press release. Nothing in the issue itself explains the title; having read the press release, I might be able to guess what comes next–if the soft cliffhanger is actually a hard one–but it’s a lot of hassle for a comic book.

While I do like Ryan Kelly’s art and Kieron Gillen definitely isn’t lazy as far as his research goes, I’m unsure why I should care about Three if I don’t like Greek history. Gillen’s not offering anything else; there’s no amazing character work here, it’s just a story about ancient Greece.

Is it different than other stories? Maybe the most mainstream ones, but there’s nothing new here.

Gillen seems to be trying to shock with how badly slaves were treated. Maybe he needs a wide-eyed audience.

Still, good Kelly art.

CREDITS

Writer, Kieron Gillen; artist, Ryan Kelly; colorist, Jordie Bellaire; letterer, Clayton Cowles; publisher, Image Comics.

The Unwritten (2009) #17

Uw17

The playful, “Choose Your Own Adventure,” aspect to this issue is stunning. It’s not the point of the comic—in fact, in a stream of consciousness sort of way, reading it straight through makes more sense (otherwise, why would Carey have ended the issue on the final pages)—but it’s a stunning device.

This issue we get Lizzie’s backstory. We do not get, however, any answers to the present questions raised and Carey raises even more questions about Lizzie than he answers.

So the ride is what’s important and it’s a wonderful ride. It makes Wilson a real character and makes Lizzie a subject.

Savoy is the opposite, of course—he’s Tom’s sidekick, regardless of how important his presence is to the triumvirate. It’ll be interesting to see if, since he’s explained Lizzie, Carey will focus on Savoy.

Nice art from Ryan Kelly too; it looks like Unwritten, but special.