The Virgin Read: Dave Sim, Grant Morrison, Geoff Johns--One Of Them Hates Kittens! But Who?

Glamourpuss # 1
By Dave Sim
Published by Aardvark-Vanaheim

The Virgin Read: “Aannnnd, we’re back.”

Hi!  Just in from Cloud Nine and picked a couple comics to review.  Flipping through the stack I came across Glamourpuss.  “Too cute!” I thought.  What a great way for me to segue back from Bride to Virgin Reader.  A fashion-y, girlie comic with cool pictures.

Um.  That’s about the best I can say about it, though.  One page in, and trying to keep myself from falling asleep, I learn that Dave Sims has just been dying to simulate Rip Kirby’s photo-realistic style of comic drawing since the completion of his life project, Cerebus.  No, I don’t know much about Cerebus.  Except that it is volumes and volumes and is "much heralded." 

He basically tells us that he’s sort of taking advantage of the reader’s expectation of sequential comic book form, to simply draw the pictures he wants to draw, and talk about Kirby. (Hey, thanks!)   He admits how there’s virtually no way to take these pictures and make a story out of them.  And then he tries. 

Question:  Why does this guy know so much about fashion?  Seriously.  I mean, clearly he’s attempting to mock womanity (women + humanity; I made a new word!), but while trying he only lets us know that he has more knowledge about fashion trends than Perez Hilton.

I didn’t know a lot about Dave Sim.  Still don’t.  But checked out some wikipedia links – read a bit of his ‘Tangents”.  Ummm….yeah….  What’s that?  Am I offended?  No.  I’m not.   I’m not offended because, between you and me, he just seems crazy. 

What’s ironic is that for all that disrespect or hate of women (or just untreated schizophrenia) – he’s actually somewhat obsessed with them, their femininity and their form as evidenced in Glamourpuss.  It's like he’s of two minds at the same time.  He’s at once the boy who’s obsessed with the girl next door and  pulls her pigtails, and simultaneously that same boy on a different day who hates the girl with the pigtails because she didn’t understand that hurting her meant that he liked her. 

But separating the comic from the writer, as a comic, I have to say that Glamourpuss is a  “Snooze-Fest.”
So, if you’re looking for a cover quote from me…
   
    Nina, of The Factual Opinion, says Dave Sims’ Glamourpuss is “Boring and self-indulgent.”

Can I go back to my cloud now?  I’m going.  Toodles.

DC Universe # 0
Written by Grant Morrison & Geoff Johns
Art by George Perez, Doug Mahnke, Tony Daniel, Ivan Reis, Aaron Lopresti, Philip Tan, Ed Benes, Carlos Pacheco, JG Jones, Scott Koblish, Christian Alamy, Oclair Albert, Matt Ryan, Jeff De Los Santos, Jesus Merino, Alex Sinclair, Tom Smith & David Baron

Oh, well, one more.  So, right before the wedding, The Factual's Publisher forwarded all the staff a link to Grant Morrison talking about the upcoming DC Universe comic on some television interview.  He sounded so excited about it.  And what’s more is that they’re only selling it for 50 cents!  Fifty cents!  I mean, do you know that the cent sign (the letter c with a line through it) doesn’t even exist on the typewriter board anymore?  That’s how long its been since something has costs mere cents--long enough that you have to use the "tools" menu to type it.  Inconvenient!

So, I immediately put in my bid for the Virgin Read to review it.  I mean, how perfect?  Right?  It’s a comic book intended for new readers.  For Virgin readers.  Hello!

Needless to say, I won the bid.

Now, I know what your argument:  "Nina, it may be cheap and for new readers, but its about Super-heroes.  You don’t like Super-heroes, remember?"

Well, no, apparently I didn’t remember.  I forgot.  I forgot, too, that I’d just read my first of these sort of everybody-in-the-universe-get-onboard-this-comic-train comic books just a few weeks ago with Secret Invasion.  And, to but it mildly, I didn’t like the format.  Yup. I forgot.

So.  Here we go.  I did like the first few pages which quickly gave me the history of one universe, vs. several universes, and how all that stuff started and where we are in that grand scheme. 

I dug that huge sprawling fight picture, too, where the only caption is “….then there was shadow.” 

However, the whole cover page thing occurring every three or four pages (coming at the end of each new section) threw me for a loop at first.  The first one I thought was an intro.  The second one I thought, “Oh shit….I just read a three page ad and thought it was part of the story.”  And that’s when I realized, the whole book is an ad.  Just a tiny hint of a story line of a new book, with a cover page as a to-be-continued. 

It certainly wasn’t awful.  I’ll say that.  And there’s some cool art.  I love the page that’s got vertical lines of every color of the spectrum -- in each color a different character – interspersed with vertical drawings of with, um, well I don’t know who that was, but that was cool.

I mean, seriously, what can I say.  I can’t review this too hard because, this isn’t a comic for me or my audience.  I mean, yes, its for new readers.  And I think that’s cool.  It's not for the mid-thirties, female demographic though.  And that’s okay. 

I think it is cool to make the book cost effective for new readers.  I hope they keep that up, though.  I like it when Broadway shows offer $20 tickets for the first two rows.  And that it is not just a one night gimmick.  I mean, it is a gimmick, for sure.  But they keep offering that, consistently--and not just to cut the newer audience a break, but to build a new audience.  To help get people to the theater who wouldn’t normally be able to afford it (anymore).

So, I like the whole idea of this.  And I think it should work for them.  I hope they keep it at a price that nearly any kid could afford.  And I hope they take the opportunity, then, to write thought-provoking comic books.  This is my dream for you, DC.  Comics for the people!

-Nina Stone, over and out.

Comments

[Mory Buckman]

You're too easy on DC Universe #0. I like superheroes, and I couldn't make heads or tails of it either.

[rodri]

That was probably the most intelligent comment on Dave Sim I've ever read.

[Ben "your new brother" Stone]

I'm not into superheros either, but that Ironman really hit the spot. If I was in yalls apartment I might even dip into the comic box to read up on some tony stark (He's a billionaire you know.). Nahh, that's crazy talk. But what a movie.