This comic promises to deliver the ultimate When Toys Come Alive/Little Fears experience. One night, the Boogeyman drags a child into the darkened closet, and into another world. The child's toys come alive, and the bravest among them set out to rescue him. You can see on the cover how crossing the threshold to the other world transforms them from animate toys into fully fantastical creatures. Everything about this feels like a child's classic storybook gone horribly dark. Even the physical dimensions of the comic call to mind the thin children's softcovers often found on spinner-racks. Charles Paul Wilson III's sepia-toned art is gorgeous as can be, and couldn't be more perfect for Mike Raicht & Brian Smith's story.A Free Comic Book Day issue (which I didn't get) previewed the first twenty-some pages; it's available online at Newsarama, and really anything I could say in the book's favor seems superfluous when you can behold with your own eyes what first-rate material this is. Kiel Phegley has an extensive and outstanding feature on it at CBR.
I'll save my analysis for the second issue, which completes the first volume. For now, this gets my highest recommendation.
9 comments:
I saw this the yesterday and gave it pass. Now I'm thinkin' I made a mistake.
I did the exact same thing, but seeing as this is the third glowing review I've read I'm gonna rectify that mistake tomorrow.
I MUST track this down. The parchment look is lovely and the toys are gorgeous. The premise of the story is great like you alluded to, fairytale come true, gone bad, boogey gets the kid!
www.musingcontinuum.com
I think I drunkenly responded to a bit of writing you posted then rescinded, but:
1) The Mouse Guard jab in Savage Critics was in response to a tendency of a lot of web sites to label certain under noticed, usually middle-brow properties as "hot", thus driving a speculator born frenzy that drives their prices through the roof; this happened for both Mouse Guard (sort of deserved it) and Chew (not really), and is happening again for Stuff of Legend. It often does help the books in the long run, in terms of widening reader exposure and ensuring new printings, but it also turns the discussion of the work among both critics and fans into something much more distorted, and far less useful.
2) I think a lot of people don't like this book for a lot of good reasons; that two out of the four people posting here gave it a pass upon first look tells you something. The kindest response is that the book shows a lot of the same problems that a lot of comics with new writers writing for too young artists with a background in illustration find: the panels don't have any kind of rhythm, don't have any kind of cartooning sense or scale within the page, the images often seem over-rendered without adding up to an interesting, coherent whole. The nearest equivalent would be a Hollywood movie where the script is too high concept, the acting too loud, and the directing and cinematography too unfocused.
3) You seem to be a smarter writer than who ever wrote this book; I haven't read the interviews, but the emphasis on "Character moments!" and "Action!" rather than the slightest sense of atmosphere beyond the most hackneyed, on-the-nose sepia design cliches, let alone any real ideas (no Hoffmann or Angela Carter here) make this seem like a post Toy Story, high concept proposal for a mid line direct to video movie adaptation.
Maybe I'm being bitter because the last volume of Delphine came out this week and no one has written more than a few words on it, despite it being a thousand thousand times more worthy than this "hot property" but there you have it. Keep up the good work and thanks for the thoughts.
nrh--the post I rescinded was itself a product of drunkenness, as was the comment I'm embarrassed to have been so rude in over at Savage Critics (I couldn't edit or delete it there, but I have apologized). I felt bad about losing your comment and the response I wrote before deleting my post here, so I'm glad you commented here again.
First, about DELPHINE, I'm going to be covering it in a big way, but I just haven't received my copy yet. I suspect I'm not alone in this, so hopefully we'll see much more about it very shortly. For my part, I hope to do an interview with Richard Sala and the whole nine yards.
Taking the rest of your points in order:
1) I hate speculation, so what you describe here does sound lamentable. Unless you think the creators have made a calculated effort to feed into and play off of this dynamic, though, is it fair to blame the comic itself for this kind of thing and make it such a prominent point of contention in a review?
2) Well, you must have a more discriminating eye than I do, because none of the "problems" you mention have marred my readings of this comic, and even flipping through it now, looking for them as you describe them, I really don't see what you're getting at. I'm always happy to learn, though--if you want to walk me through a sample page or two (or however many it takes), explaining how they're guilty of these sins, maybe I'll reevaluate, if you persuade me.
3) Again, I just don't see where you're coming from here. What's wrong with the character moments and action? They work for me. So, for that matter, do what you describe as "the most hackneyed, on-the-nose sepia design cliches." Ultimately, I came to this comic wanting a certain kind of reading experience, and it totally delivered. I haven't analyzed that too closely yet (and don't really plan to until I've read the next, concluding issue), but I'm not very forgiving when something disappoints me, and this absolutely didn't.
It's possible (even likely) that the concept appeals to me in a way that blinds me to objective flaws, in sort of the way I describe here.
Well, I'll be interested to hear what more you have to say about it.
Well, I'll be looking forward to your Delphine coverage...
I'd rather wait to hear what you have to say about the book before responding further; I don't have a scanner handy to touch specific panel sequences, and I'd like to hear your appreciation of the material. I could use the free comic book day material which is online but that's not really fair. And I don't have any real hatred towards the comics myself; it just seems a little stiff for my taste; it looks more like storyboard than comics to my eye, like the rhythm would make more sense as a back and forth between actors than something happening on the space of a page.
Regarding your notion of the content appealing to you...looking over the prologue to your book I'd be more interested in your version of the script drawn in the style of the 'fumetti' artists you introduced me to. That's a comic I would be much more interested in reading...
Hey guys thanks for giving our book The Stuff of Legend a look. I saw the savage critic post, it's unfortunate for us, hopefully whoever wrote that gives the book a chance independent of the labeling that people have placed on the book, it seemed like there was more issue with that than the book itself. That said the bottom line is that we set out to tell a cool story with a fantastic artist, there certainly wasn't an intent to create the next flash in a pan. It was our hope that we could achieve a fraction of the heat that a book like Mouse Guard garnered. We're making these books in the hopes that people will read them, something that is much easier said than done, so while we weren't saying to ourselves gee, I hope this is the next MG, you bet your rear we were hoping that we got that level of readership or greater.
It's understandable that it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but fortunately for us it has been enough of one for some people that our initial print run will head to a second. Something that as an indie publisher I cannot be more thankful and proud of. I'd like to think that there is something a little more than to it than just being a random arbitrary choice that has lead to the positive press.
Thanks again, I love to see that people are giving it a chance. At the end of the day that's all we can ask. We have plenty more story planned, hopefully people stick around for the ride.
On a side note if anyone is having problems getting the books online, we will be tossing some more in the online store when we do the second printing, so if your local store doesn't order it, we will make it as easy as possible to get a hold of a copy.
nrh--thanks for the kind words about my writing! Once I finish the novel, I am actually toying with the idea of trying to adapt it into an ogn script or something, just for the hell of imagining it that way, if nothing else. So I wasn't kidding when I said I'd like to better understand some of these points you're making. I'm sure I have only the faintest layperson's understanding of page layout, etc., and it sounds like you're bringing a pretty advanced if not outright professional perspective to it.
Mike--thanks for stopping by! I love the book so far, and look forward to much more!
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