![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juushikaTitle: Moonstruck, Vol. 1: Magic to Brew
Author: Grace Ellis
Illustrator: Shae Beagle and Kate Leth
Published: Image Comics, 2018
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 120
Total Page Count: 311,195
Text Number: 1066
Read Because: can't remember where I heard of this but I think maybe Our Opinions are Correct?, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: The adventures of a werewolf, her new werewolf girlfriend, and their group of magical friends. I'll be the first to admit that I'm burned out on Tumblr-aesthetic diversity-bingo feel-good comics, and this is very much of that style. But what gets me is the slapstick humor and antagonistic characters in the background. Conflict can be productive (even clichés like bad communication in romantic relationships) and it could be used to balance the tone, but these acts of petty violence and verbal abuse are treated more like comic relief and it's wildly discordant. The rest of this is fine: a charmingly creative and diverse cast, some successful emotional moments, less successful attempts to complicate the narrative structure. If well-intended cloying fluff is a bonus, maybe this works; I found it too sweet and too petty, and won't continue.
Title: Venom by Rick Remender: The Complete Collection, Volume 1
Author: Rick Remender
Published: Marvel, 2015 (2011-2012)
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 320
Total Page Count: 311,515
Text Number: 1067
Read Because: still reading Venom I guess, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: I was skeptical of the new concept of Venom as a sanctioned weapon, which I worried wouldn't feel as dangerous or alien, but this has its own interesting tensions, moving the focus from consent to autonomy and control. But the trappings are uninteresting: bad communication with a civilian girlfriend, cycles of abuse, blackmail/gray morality, and the dubious ethics of the government are such predictable tropes for comics in general and this premise in particular, and their executions are lackluster. The style is too: modern comics are sleeker and more consistent than their classic counterparts, but they're also dense, taxing reads with interchangable art styles; and Remender loves a sentence fragment, which makes the inner monologues stiff and samey. There's potential in this revised, long arc, but I find myself thusfar unmoved—and I'm not sure if that's because the run is still getting its groove and/or because I'm burned out on comics.
Title: Things We Lost in the Fire
Author: Mariana Enríquez
Translator: Megan McDowell
Published: Hogarth Press, 2017 (2016)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 210
Total Page Count: 311,725
Text Number: 1068
Read Because: on this list of recommendations, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: 12 stories of horror and the dark fantastic set in Argentina. The combination of social tension, horror (as allegory for social tension), and place is distinctive yet familiar, reminiscent of Machado's Her Body and Other Parties, Tiptree and Atwood, and feminist literary horror/gothic in general—and it has the strengths and weaknesses of that genre: mythologized gendered experience and the symbolic use disability and deformity are powerful tropes but easily tip towards trite, and there's some problematic ableism; the horror stands in rocky balance with the grinding mundanity of failing interpersonal relationships, and while it can be effective and confrontational it's as often disjointed and cheap. Perhaps the more obvious comparison is Schweblin's Fever Dream, another Argentine author writing similar themes—but where Fever Dream is drenched in style, dense and ambiguous in a way that inevitably produces nuance, this is without style or voice—and lacks nuance. I like this collection in theory and some stories work (my favorite: "Adela's House," overtly horror with some fun imagery, less objectifying of deformity than other stories), but I have higher demands of the execution.
Author: Grace Ellis
Illustrator: Shae Beagle and Kate Leth
Published: Image Comics, 2018
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 120
Total Page Count: 311,195
Text Number: 1066
Read Because: can't remember where I heard of this but I think maybe Our Opinions are Correct?, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: The adventures of a werewolf, her new werewolf girlfriend, and their group of magical friends. I'll be the first to admit that I'm burned out on Tumblr-aesthetic diversity-bingo feel-good comics, and this is very much of that style. But what gets me is the slapstick humor and antagonistic characters in the background. Conflict can be productive (even clichés like bad communication in romantic relationships) and it could be used to balance the tone, but these acts of petty violence and verbal abuse are treated more like comic relief and it's wildly discordant. The rest of this is fine: a charmingly creative and diverse cast, some successful emotional moments, less successful attempts to complicate the narrative structure. If well-intended cloying fluff is a bonus, maybe this works; I found it too sweet and too petty, and won't continue.
Title: Venom by Rick Remender: The Complete Collection, Volume 1
Author: Rick Remender
Published: Marvel, 2015 (2011-2012)
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 320
Total Page Count: 311,515
Text Number: 1067
Read Because: still reading Venom I guess, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: I was skeptical of the new concept of Venom as a sanctioned weapon, which I worried wouldn't feel as dangerous or alien, but this has its own interesting tensions, moving the focus from consent to autonomy and control. But the trappings are uninteresting: bad communication with a civilian girlfriend, cycles of abuse, blackmail/gray morality, and the dubious ethics of the government are such predictable tropes for comics in general and this premise in particular, and their executions are lackluster. The style is too: modern comics are sleeker and more consistent than their classic counterparts, but they're also dense, taxing reads with interchangable art styles; and Remender loves a sentence fragment, which makes the inner monologues stiff and samey. There's potential in this revised, long arc, but I find myself thusfar unmoved—and I'm not sure if that's because the run is still getting its groove and/or because I'm burned out on comics.
Title: Things We Lost in the Fire
Author: Mariana Enríquez
Translator: Megan McDowell
Published: Hogarth Press, 2017 (2016)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 210
Total Page Count: 311,725
Text Number: 1068
Read Because: on this list of recommendations, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: 12 stories of horror and the dark fantastic set in Argentina. The combination of social tension, horror (as allegory for social tension), and place is distinctive yet familiar, reminiscent of Machado's Her Body and Other Parties, Tiptree and Atwood, and feminist literary horror/gothic in general—and it has the strengths and weaknesses of that genre: mythologized gendered experience and the symbolic use disability and deformity are powerful tropes but easily tip towards trite, and there's some problematic ableism; the horror stands in rocky balance with the grinding mundanity of failing interpersonal relationships, and while it can be effective and confrontational it's as often disjointed and cheap. Perhaps the more obvious comparison is Schweblin's Fever Dream, another Argentine author writing similar themes—but where Fever Dream is drenched in style, dense and ambiguous in a way that inevitably produces nuance, this is without style or voice—and lacks nuance. I like this collection in theory and some stories work (my favorite: "Adela's House," overtly horror with some fun imagery, less objectifying of deformity than other stories), but I have higher demands of the execution.
