Greetings true believers! It has been far too long since I’ve written so I decided this week to do something totally fresh and different.
This past weekend I went to good ol’ Midtown Comics in Times Square and searched the racks for two of the most obscure issue number ones I could find. I felt I should give the lesser know companies and books their due.
Let’s start with The Dreamer by Lora Innes, published by IDW. This book tells the story of Beatrice, your average high school girl with generic friends, crushes, and dreams of being an actress.
The only thing weird about her is that she has dreams which take her back to the revolutionary war with her companion, William (who will probably turn out to be her lover in future).
The story is bland, with maybe one or two specs of interesting dialogue here or there. Otherwise it comes off as amateurish, as if a high school girl wrote it. The art is so-so; some panels are fine, others are just plain bad.
Also, many of the characters who are supposed to look like high school students and yet are look like they are about 28. Can the story recover in future issues? Maybe. Probably not, especially if that dialogue does not get any better. For those of you who need a point of reference the dialogue in this book makes George Lucas look like Charlie Kaufman.
‘ The second book is ‘I Hate Gallant Girl,’ published by Image Comics. This book focuses on a world where people who have superpowers seem to be a dime a dozen, so much so that there is a beauty pageant type event to choose a super heroine called Gallant Girl.
In the most recent competition, Miss Maine- Rene Tempete fails to win the competition despite being the most talented girl the competition has ever seen, she just does not have the good looks they are looking for. She then tries to go rogue and do the super heroine thing on her own and nearly gets killed doing it.
She is offered the chance then to do all of the work gallant Girl would do but get none of credit. She of course rejects this offer but is given another offer by another super hero Mr. Thunder, who agrees to train her. A lot of story in this one issue I know and I have to give the writer credit for packing all of this exposition into one issue and making it interesting.
The art, like in the first book, is nothing special and at times, really bad. The one thing that truly irks me about this story is that it has the potential to explore so many issues of how women are viewed in society.
But thus far the book feels like it will only skate on the surface and not face the more interesting issues beneath. Is it worth picking up? Probably not, except to see the potential of what could have been.
Until next time true believers this is Comic Book Boy saying ‘Take care!’
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