WATCHING THE DETECTIVES: Comics reviews. Snapshots first, then longer reports. Next installment will review Cuckoo, Jar of Fools, and Uzumaki. The longer reviews in this installment are in alphabetical order, which means they end on a hell of a note. This was a very, very good trip to the comics shop.

First, the short takes: Sean Collins asked, lo these many weeks ago, for recommendations of horror/frightening comics. I finally thought of a few. All from Love and Rockets.

The most horrific L&R; is definitely the title story from “Flies on the Ceiling.” That hits me in the heart and the gut every time I read it. But a few other L&R; stories also fit the bill: Wigwam Bam (more of a noir, and probably more dependent on your already knowing the characters, whereas I think you could start with “Flies on the Ceiling”); Poison River (Gilbert Hernandez’s best art by far, and some of his best storytelling); and, absolutely, the “Human Diastrophism” story from Blood of Palomar. (That’s another one you could start with, since I don’t think it requires any prior knowledge of the characters. And holy cannoli, frightening.)

Gone and Forgotten (a wildly funny site) slams Marvels. Now, I’ve already expressed my love for this book! So perhaps my reaction is simply predictable.

But I guess I just didn’t feel like I was being herded into taking the pro-costumed-vigilantes side as thoroughly as G&F; did. I thought the book made several of the points G&F; makes in his review, e.g. “there are just as many super bad guys as there are super good guys.” (Wasn’t that the point of kicking the book off with Namor vs. New York?)

I expect my take on the book stems from five facts: I knew very, very little about the Marvel Universe when I read it, so “fannish” concerns were pretty much nowhere on my list of reactions. And I didn’t know who I was supposed to root for. (I still don’t really know to what extent Namor is supposed to be a Good Guy.)

I love J. Jonah Jameson. He’s my third favorite superhero-comics character ever. (After Cyclops and Daredevil, assuming you care.) He’s great and a half. I want to be him if I grow up. So I always do sympathize with the anti-superhero faction.

(Relatedly:) In art generally, I tend to sympathize with whoever is wrong. It’s very easy to be wrong. People are often wrong for the best reasons. Ultimately, Marvels does present most (but, I’d still contend, not all) of the anti-superhero sentiment of the M.U. as wrong; but wrong in a way that you and I are wrong all the time, every day. Wrong because accurate moral assessments are really, really hard.

I’m kind of obsessed with the concept of the sublime. All sublime things are frightening; not all frightening things are sublime. I thought part of the point of Marvels was the blurry line dividing the two categories.

And finally, I’m obsessed with the consequences, virtues, and blindnesses of the American moralistic streak, and I thought Marvels brought those out in a subtle and unexpected way (and in a way that, again, complicated and undercut the “you should love the masked vigilantes who protect your country!” message).

OK, so… that was a creative definition of a “short take.” Sorry…! Now the reviews:

Goldfish: Underworld fatherhood and romantic crimes. Brian Bendis working with some of the same characters, and roughly the same style (cinematic, cutting, noir), as in Jinx. This is shorter and cheaper than Jinx, and it is quite good, but it’s really not as stylistically innovative or emotionally intense as Jinx. If you want to do a “starter Bendis” book to see what the hype is about, I’d suggest Alias vol. 1 or Torso (below), and if you want flawed-but-brilliant Bendis noir then Jinx is worth the price and size. Goldfish is more for a) people who are totally into David Gold’s character and b) Bendis freaks. I’m absolutely a) and have a mild case of b). So I liked this, but you needn’t run out and buy it.

Human Target: Final Cut: This is a stripped-down, very basic rendering of the book’s core idea: a man who can perfectly impersonate anyone else, who acts as a decoy for people whose lives are threatened but who feels his own identity dissolving into the many masks he has to wear.

I thought this was much better than the merely-competent earlier volume. I’m not sure why, though. Maybe it’s just that this storyline feels less random, more designed specifically to play to the concept’s strengths (it’s set in Hollywood, perfect choice), and less convoluted. Liked this a lot.

Torso: Bendis true-crime piece about Eliot Ness’s battle to crack a Cleveland serial-killer case. Black and white, like Goldfish and Jinx. Phenomenal use of space and panel shape to create atmosphere, “tone of voice,” and pacing. Excellent facial expressions.

Really, this is fine stuff. You know how James Wood, the New Republic literary editor, always picks the exact right word for every situation? And you know how it can get showoffy, cloying, and distracting–too perfect? Bendis at his best is like if James Wood a) made comics and b) knew that sprezzatura is preferable to mannered perfection. All the precision with none of the prissiness.

Watchmen: I have very, very little to say about this. It was breathtaking. This book is exactly as good as everyone says. The striking, distilled characters; the powerful presentations of moral dilemmas; the ferocious interweaving of different narrative strands and symbols; this is for real. I can’t believe I put off reading this for so long. This is canon fodder–and not solely the comics canon, which is boringly obvious, but the ultimate canon where all art forms converge. This is A-level art. This is the $#@!

Do yourself a favor. Don’t bother reading reviews or whatever. Don’t make the mistake I made of leafing through this in the comics shop and saying, “Eh, not so much, not today”–Watchmen needs to be read with more attention than you can give in a comics shop. Just buy this and read it. Daggone.

(There are also obvious contemporary political applications: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?)

Sigh, I have some less than complimentary things to say about the Jess Lemon review, but my comments on that are basically unrelated to Watchmen itself so I’ll save ’em. Be grateful. But these passages are absolutely right:

“What makes WATCHMEN great, though, is that it’s got a beautifully formed aesthetic–it’s pretty clear that somebody sat down before they started writing or drawing and decided what it was going to look like, what sort of pacing it’d have, how exactly the story was going to be told, what things they would and wouldn’t do in the telling. They figured out how every chapter and every page would be structured, what kinds of clothes people would be wearing, what the architecture and geography would look like, how transitions between scenes would work, how cars and street furniture and household appliances would be designed, what kinds of information would be revealed or concealed or only partly displayed, and how all of those things would relate to the overall meaning of the book. That kind of formal planning takes a certain amount of effort to do, but it pays off so much. …

“…And those six full-page frames at the beginning of the last chapter hit me like a brick, and I realized afterwards that it was the first time in the book that we’d seen one image from the story proper occupying an entire page. That’s such a pure comics moment.”

And I don’t know if anyone cared about my whole Spanish Tragedy/superhero comics parallel post, but if you thought that was cool, and for some bizarre reason you haven’t read Watchmen already, you’re in for a real kick in the head.

Visible shivers running down my spine….

“What is the cause of thunder?”