This Old Comic Book

Curse of the Were-Woman

written by Jason M. Burns, art by Christopher Provencher, Devil’s Due, color graphic novel, $14.99 US

Patrick’s a self-obsessed, narcisstic babehound who sleeps with a different female every night. After using and dumping the wrong witch, she curses him to become a woman once the sun goes down. For those of you old enough to remember, yes, it’s a comic version of the movie Switch, liberally mixed with the lessons from What Women Want.

Those weren’t the only movies I was reminded of, though — the opening smacks of American Psycho, with the lead’s fetishized rituals and self-love. The book relies on stereotypes throughout, with the witch being drawn as a Death-like goth and no characters, male or female, having much depth.

Women in this comic are defined by their physicality, their breasts and menstuation and availability for sex. Patrick even hits on himself as Patricia! There are two female characters who are not characterized by their attractiveness; one is merely a symbol of Patrick’s change of heart, and the other is a harridan, Patrick’s former friend’s fat wife. Patricia doesn’t seem like a real woman, but a guy’s checklist of what women are like.

It’s ironic, because Patrick’s lesson is to learn that women are more than sex objects, but the writer doesn’t seem to have taken that message to heart, although the men fare no better. There’s no sense of what made Patrick the man he is beyond the most superficial: he likes women and sex. Has he ever loved or been hurt? I have no idea, which makes the long-expected happy ending less than satisfying.

The presentation is slick and professional, and the dialogue is snappy. You may laugh while reading it — although I found it often too predictable to be funny — but it won’t stick with you. I bet someone options it for the movies.

I don’t know when this is coming out — the publisher thought the end of March (too late), while Amazon says September. You can see preview pages in this interview at the Pulse.

Strongman

written by Charles Soule, art by Allen Gladfelter, SLG Publishing, black-and-white graphic novel, $9.95 US

I don’t get the attraction of the masked Mexican wrestler, or luchador. I’m also not attracted to the “washed-up alcoholic makes good one more time” story type (unless it’s Cat Ballou), so this book isn’t for me. I was taken in by the layouts of the first few pages, which use the page as a whole to create a graphic statement, but the art became much more standard after that, so I stopped reading.

Here’s a much better review than mine. The publisher has posted preview pages, which show you the layouts I was talking about. There’s also an online trailer.

Wise Intelligence #1

written by Ryan McLelland, art by Adam Talley, self-published, black-and-white comic, part one of three-part miniseries, $4 US

As soon as I looked at the pages, I thought “looks like a (stereotypical) webcomic” — flat art, simple faces, lots of talking heads, dodgy grasp of character design, boring layouts, attitude substituting for wit. Lo and behold, it was. The inside front cover text is set in Comic Sans, another no-no for professional use.

I was also turned off by the promotion text, which talks about how it continues from an anthology I’ve never heard of. Made me feel like I was coming in late. But since it’s a story about college frat boys, I wasn’t too far behind, since the characters and situations are familiar.

Three upperclassmen are upset that one of them has accidentally been assigned to the freshman dorm. But since his roommate is the son of the university president, it’s not such a bad deal. Guys get laid, guys go to film class (and make Deep Throat jokes), guys play video games, one takes Feminist Theory to “mack chicks”. Someone’s watched Van Wilder too many times. There’s not much story, just a string of incidents. The book is available for order online.

(All reviews are based on complimentary copies, either print (Strongman) or PDF.)

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