52 Aftermath: Crime Bible Five Lessons of Blood: Lust
Written by Greg Rucka
Art by Jesus Saiz, Steve Lieber & ERic Trautmann
Published by DC Comics
This comic has a somewhat intriguing cover, because of the half-naked woman (with realistic proportions) reaching towards the faceless woman. I wish the facelessness hadn't intrigued me, now that I finished reading it. In picking this weeks comics, I tried to not pick something featuring superheroes, not realizing that I was staring into the facelessness of a superhero. (I'm trying to stay away from superheroes because they still have residual corniness of the 1960's version of the Batman television show, which i've seen in reruns. The only other super-hero exposure I have is Super-Friends on Saturday Morning Cartoons, and the occasional Superman/Spider-Man/X-Man movie. The 60's Batman and Super-Friends are silly and unrealistic, and i feel like i can't, at this point, give their comic versions a fair try. Yet.)
So, 52 Aftermath: Crime Bible Five Lessons of Blood: Lust. Maybe I should go to the Super-Friends anyway. What was the point of this comic? What is a "faceless defiler?" What is her "power?" She takes a pill, gets blue hair and loses her face? And then she goes "Hey look, no face!" Punch. Ahh, the old no-face fake out. What?
I have more questions. How have they seen into that room every time Renee was there, but didn't see the first time when she changed into the blue-haired faceless thing? What, exactly, did she accomplish when she did change into the blue-haired faceless thing? She flexed her "powers of snooping?" Too bad she doesn't have Superman's hearing, because i was forced to read two pages of "unintelligible, unintelligible, do this" etc. And hey, lesbian sex!
Why? I don't know. But I do know that the whole last page reminded me of that old Morgan Fairchild movie The Initiation of Sarah, because of the fire, the hoods and the people acting like a coven. Are they Wiccan? Is this a lesbian Wican comic? Does anybody know where I can get a VHS of The Initiation of Sarah? I still think about that scalding shower scene with Morgan Fairchild in the tub sometime. (Not because I'm a lesbian. That's okay if you're a lesbian. I guess this is your comic book. You can have it back.)
I have nothing else to say about this comic.
Casanova # 11
Written by Matt Fraction
Art by Fabio Moon
Published by Image Comics
Yes, I read two comics this week. I narrowed it down to these two but couldn't decide. I asked if it was okay to read two, and he said yes, as long as I reviewed both of them.
Gee, thanks for the guidance.
Lookie here: another lesbian sex scene. I guess this really is a male fantasy. Cracks me up. Anyhoo. Casanova was all blue, black & white this month. I guess this month, I don't know if it usually is. I can see how this comic is in a class of it's own, interesting to many and unique. That being said, I didn't really like it. Although I read the recap (only once), I still don't know who or what I was reading about, either in the recap or the comic. The first part was...interesting? Realizing the twist, the game that the two were playing was cool, but seriously--did poisoning her champagne have to follow random lesbian sex? Couldn't they have just talked? I don't have problem with lesbians, and I don't have a problem with sex. (I support one and enjoy the other. Guess!) This just seemed gratitious, or more like, "Hey, I'm good at Drawing Boobs! When can I Draw Some Boobs?"
So now I'm gonna jump to talk about form. On the two-page layout, focusing on the post-coital poisoning, I couldn't follow the sequence of the panels. I re-read three times to figure out the order to read them in. (Don't worry. I "got it.") It was just seemed like it was all about the two naked woman in the middle of the page, with the dialog treated as an after-thought. It was clever to use the black & white to portray memories--but still, what were you doing?
Another comment on form: what was with the ending? It jumped from a paneled story to...I don't know, what were all the panels of words? Were they using their minds to speak? Was it a group dialog, like therapy? And why did that one guy have such a big head? I get that the "space-time continuum is all a-tither" but I can't deal with the "When is Casanova?"
It's where. Where is Casanova. Because he's not HERE. Where is he? When someone's across the world, in a different time zone, I don't say "When is John?" I say "Where is John!"
I don't mean to be nasty. Like I said, I appreciate the cleverness and the oddness of this comic. I started reading the commentary at the end to get some insight about the comic, and I did find it to be interesting, heady stuff for the first couple of pages. I'm currently reading the Bhagavad Gita. The version I'm reading has an introduction to each chapter, explaining and explicating the meaning of what comes next. I continue reading that commentary because I'm really interested in understanding the Gita as much as possible. As I'm reading the commentary about Casanova, I realize I'm not as interested in it as I am in the Bhagavad Gita, and I'd rather be reading that right now. So I put the comic down.
I feel bad, like I'm totally panning Casanova, and that's not what I mean to do. It makes me feel ignorant, like I'm trying to put something down because I don't understand it. Matt Fraction! You have all my respect! Just not my readership. I'm sorry. Maybe if I read Casanova #1 I'd feel differently.
Kisses!
-Nina Miller, 2007
I was in Blockbuster yesterday and they've got a new DVD edition of The Initiation of Sarah available.
Posted by: David Lee Ingersoll | 2007.11.30 at 11:26