Hmm, well, okay, that was interesting… and quick! Seems like I got through the issue in less than 5 minutes. That’s all you need if you’re Jeff Lemire. That’s probably written on his ‘Comic Book Titan of the Industry’ laminated business card: Give me five minutes and I’ll sell you a 5-6 issue mini-series like I’m a Michelin Star Rated Taco Truck on the Santa Monica Pier.
I bet you Jeff Lemire just pops out comic book premises like he’s coming up with random wacky recipes on a Food Network Chef Competition Show. He could be sitting in traffic as the third car in the left lane waiting to make a left turn in LA Rush Hour traffic and he could come up with two alien abduction story lines, an Incan Murder Mystery set in an underground city and a tearjerker about a dog who can fly that finds his long lost owner on an island and then defeats the Chinese Communist Party with his owner by using their laser eyes…and still make the left turn even though he was third.
That’s when you know you’re a real driver and someone who doesn’t take shit in your life, when you’re third and you still insist on making that left. You can tell a lot about someone on how they take left turns. If a woman is third and takes a left turn and she’s third, you got a winner. If a woman is fourth and still takes a left turn get out of the car and run the moment you come to a complete stop. Also, if a woman is second and doesn’t take the light when it’s clear that she could have made it get out of the car right then and there and use the crosswalk to escape from her mind boggling life decisions that are waiting to haunt you and your blooming relationship of fire and brimstone.
Anyway, Jeff you’ve hooked me again you bastard! With something so simple and so easily laid out; it’s a master class in the simplicity of a plot device grabbing a reader’s attention. Yeah, anyone could have come up with this plot device, it’s not like he’s reinventing literature with it. But it’s the execution and the way it makes you furrow your brow and go ‘hmm, what the hell is that, that was weird, hmm’ as you think about it at random moments of your day.
Like you’ll be on a date and your eyes will wander and the babbling insecure actress in front of you with the three pounds of make-up that attempts to cover up her pockmarked skin will ask ‘Hey, where did you just go?’ If you’re interested in her you’ll say ‘Ah, your story of being robbed at the WeHo Whole Foods by a naked homeless person in the prepared foods aisle made me think of a time in my life when I felt helpless and violated’. If you’re not interested in her you’ll say ‘Yeah, this new Jeff Lemire book has me fucking hooked and spooked, like for realzy’.
I’m not even going to reveal the premise of the basic mechanics of the plot and the world he’s created here. All I will say is that there’s this thing, some object, in the middle of a highway that you’re going to spend your disposable income on in order to find out what it is. If you purchase this comic you’re going to be at the mercy of Jeffy M for as long as he wants to drain you of 4 bux a month. It’s not like you’ll be able to cancel halfway like you’re cancelling a Peacock TV subscription (my goodness I don’t remember signing up for $5 a month with them and my goodness they make it unbelievable hard to navigate to the page where you can cancel your phantom subscription), no, this book will automatically be added to your pull list as if AI had taken over your local comic book shop; which it probably has at this point.
Look, this isn’t a world breaker or a game changer of the industry type of comic. It’s a drop from a dude who’s on a roll unlike any other writer in the Comic Book Universe right now. So don’t even question why, just get it and let Jizzle LeMizzle do whatever the hell he wants to do with the part of your comic book brain until he’s had enough and the ideas that he came up with while waiting for ten minutes outside of his hot yoga class with his gaia yoga mat in hand make it onto your pull list.
Rating: 7.9
Verdict: Pull
No comments:
Post a Comment