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| Suspended Animation, 6/04/2004 |
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Para #1
$2.95 & 32 pgs.
Words: Stuart Moore
Art: Pablo Villalobos
Spoiler warning!! The following review will reveal that Para #1 is an excellent comic book. If you don't want to know that a comic book is excellent before you buy it, don't read this review.
Since her father's death, a young woman searches for the reason a disaster inside a super-collider killed him. After two decades, her father's friend allows her and a research team into the abandoned facility. What they find launches a new title from Penny-Farthing Press that promises to be one of the best published in 2004.
Your only disappointment, like mine, may be that mutants with super-powers will be discovered deep within that super-collider.
Nevertheless, if you are uninterested in intriguing plot and characterization, crisp dialog, and flawless storytelling, then this new title is not for you. And if you are uninterested in distinctive and internally consistent art, excellent coloring, and flawless visual storytelling, then ignore Para at your comic book shop.
Para is highly recommended.
MINIVIEW: The Bristol Board Jungle [NBM] "Reality TV" has come to comic books. This paper documentary is about students butting heads with the real work involved in producing a comic book, and was created by a real college class at the Savanna College of Art & Design. That means that The Bristol Board is a fanzine (a magazine produced by amateurs) with high production values.
But it is more. While it's true that the stories within the larger context of this graphic novel are too short and unpolished to entertain on their own, that larger story is entertaining.
Its strength lies not in the superhero, 'indie' or manga/shojo girlie styles of art and story, but in the extremely well done characterization of the students and their interplay in and outside of the classroom.
Comic book fans and budding cartoonists should see much of them-selves in The Bristol Board.
Michael Vance
Shudder at Vance's Light's End horror short stories narrated by actor William Windom at www.plan9.org.
Questions? Comment? E-Mail Suspended Animation at vance@digitalwebbing.com
Any statements made, expressed or implied are solely those of columnists or persons interviewed and do not represent the editorial position of the administration, who does not accept responsibility of such statements. All characters and artwork shown are trademark and © of their respective owners.
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