In which I try for a humorous digression & mostly sound like a dick
The Time Team is the first of the digest-sized Go Girl! volumes.
I'm not the target audience for this, I know. But in theory this has the sort of things I want to see. A female protagonist; an easy generationality (Lindsay is a second-generation superhero); a light touch; self-contained issues as part of the larger life of the character.
And yet, getting to the end of it, I thought, "I'm glad I didn't pay money for this." (Then I thought, "Is that fair? I mean, would I really regret paying $6 for this when I was buying comix?" Actually, I have paid much more for such thinly written stuff. And to be honest, I don't think I personally care enough to own the whole run of some the manga I've been reading lately either. Maybe Land of the Blindfolded, but not Takeru or Penguin Revolution. But when I was buying comix, I might have bought Takeru & not Land of the Blindfolded. It's so girly! But mostly I don't care about having my own private library anymore.)
Anne Timmons's art avoids the pinhead look of so many superhero comix; it's simple, yet both representational & expressive. The digest format suits her page layouts of 1-3 panels per page.
I just don't like it very much.
The writing is so simple, the formulae so familiar. Would I like it better if I were a child? I don't know.
...
Ah, the syndrome of the jaded reviewer, who's seen too much the same & wants something different. At some point you should probably look for other work, once you're only praising things that are sufficiently subversive & surprising. Or titillating in the way you like.
If I were a professional reviewer, at some point I might have to give up on fiction & go into politics.
Can you imagine a jaded reviewer as a politician or pundit? Constitution questions: "Wouldn't it be more interesting if we rewrote the constitution so that elections were every six months, but each voter could only vote once every three years? I want to see that, just for my own amusement!" Statutes: "Let's have a five-year mandatory minimum for possession of whiskey, & sell cocaine in the drugstores! But only for three years!" Foreign policy: "NATO, SchmATO, what happens if the USA's primary ally is Brazil? Ooooh...."
No, it's more that US politics is so freaking resistant to change, that you can call for change for years without getting anywhere. The new & different is something you push for for a long time. It becomes a long fight, & you can constantly call for reform. That has a certain appeal to me.
Actually, that probably means the easily bored give up on politics, & go off in search of things that more quickly sate their boredom. Ah.
...
Anyway, my problem with Go Girl! may in fact be partly that it's not what I'm used to. Anne Timmons's art may need more time to grow on me. But it's also--so old hat. Someone who'd never read a comic book about superheroes or teenagers might like it. But I found it silly & bland.
Part of it is probably that my copy was badly bound, so bits of the page were cut off. At one point Lindsay appears to say, "These guys look like kings. How did we end up in Norway?" Of course it's, "These guys look like Vikings."
Maybe it's that I'm adjusting from relatively high-impact actioners, & the deeply emotionally invested Land of the Blindfolded, & Go Girl! is so light, so low-impact, in effect. And it's short.
I never read Trina Robbins's Barbie comix. They did go for a while, as did her California Girls (which I may have flipped through once; I don't remember for certain, but I seem to recall being unimpressed). Maybe she's just kind of a thin writer. Not my cuppa.
I'm not the target audience for this, I know. But in theory this has the sort of things I want to see. A female protagonist; an easy generationality (Lindsay is a second-generation superhero); a light touch; self-contained issues as part of the larger life of the character.
And yet, getting to the end of it, I thought, "I'm glad I didn't pay money for this." (Then I thought, "Is that fair? I mean, would I really regret paying $6 for this when I was buying comix?" Actually, I have paid much more for such thinly written stuff. And to be honest, I don't think I personally care enough to own the whole run of some the manga I've been reading lately either. Maybe Land of the Blindfolded, but not Takeru or Penguin Revolution. But when I was buying comix, I might have bought Takeru & not Land of the Blindfolded. It's so girly! But mostly I don't care about having my own private library anymore.)
Anne Timmons's art avoids the pinhead look of so many superhero comix; it's simple, yet both representational & expressive. The digest format suits her page layouts of 1-3 panels per page.
I just don't like it very much.
The writing is so simple, the formulae so familiar. Would I like it better if I were a child? I don't know.
...
Ah, the syndrome of the jaded reviewer, who's seen too much the same & wants something different. At some point you should probably look for other work, once you're only praising things that are sufficiently subversive & surprising. Or titillating in the way you like.
If I were a professional reviewer, at some point I might have to give up on fiction & go into politics.
Can you imagine a jaded reviewer as a politician or pundit? Constitution questions: "Wouldn't it be more interesting if we rewrote the constitution so that elections were every six months, but each voter could only vote once every three years? I want to see that, just for my own amusement!" Statutes: "Let's have a five-year mandatory minimum for possession of whiskey, & sell cocaine in the drugstores! But only for three years!" Foreign policy: "NATO, SchmATO, what happens if the USA's primary ally is Brazil? Ooooh...."
No, it's more that US politics is so freaking resistant to change, that you can call for change for years without getting anywhere. The new & different is something you push for for a long time. It becomes a long fight, & you can constantly call for reform. That has a certain appeal to me.
Actually, that probably means the easily bored give up on politics, & go off in search of things that more quickly sate their boredom. Ah.
...
Anyway, my problem with Go Girl! may in fact be partly that it's not what I'm used to. Anne Timmons's art may need more time to grow on me. But it's also--so old hat. Someone who'd never read a comic book about superheroes or teenagers might like it. But I found it silly & bland.
Part of it is probably that my copy was badly bound, so bits of the page were cut off. At one point Lindsay appears to say, "These guys look like kings. How did we end up in Norway?" Of course it's, "These guys look like Vikings."
Maybe it's that I'm adjusting from relatively high-impact actioners, & the deeply emotionally invested Land of the Blindfolded, & Go Girl! is so light, so low-impact, in effect. And it's short.
I never read Trina Robbins's Barbie comix. They did go for a while, as did her California Girls (which I may have flipped through once; I don't remember for certain, but I seem to recall being unimpressed). Maybe she's just kind of a thin writer. Not my cuppa.