WEARING BUT A PAPER DRESS: Comics reviews. In alphabetical order to maximize randomness.

JM DeMatteis and Glenn Barr, Brooklyn Dreams. This is a fun and easy to read coming-of-age/family/drugs/search for God tale, but nothing more. DeMatteis has a sweet sense of humor, and the drawings are appealingly exaggerated–portraying the world the way children see it, cartoonishly. The pictures set in the past are stark black-and-white, funny, and hyper; those set in the present are awash in gray tones, subtler, adrift in the confusion of adulthood. Very nice stuff–captures the cartoony, exaggerated way the world looks to kids, who have not yet learned a sense of scale. Compassionate pictures of the narrator’s parents make the clash of child/teen vs. adult perspective more obvious. Lots of moving stuff here, and lots of fun stuff, but I’m not sure it adds up to a whole heck of a lot.

BD at first seemed to be made for me. It’s got the Jew vibe, the Catholic vibe, the Dostoyevsky vibe. But it keeps promising more than it delivers. (Lots of suspense–“But we don’t have time for that right now…”–which goes from intriguing to really funny to shticky.) I do understand that spiritual payoffs are unusually hard to describe (this is where Creature Tech failed too, for example), but honestly, what am I to make of this kind of thing?: “But here I was–glimpsing the place in every passing heart, where so-called good and so-called evil met, where yin and yang balanced.” The pictures do not illuminate this statement. So the book starts much stronger than it ends, unfortunately.

Brian Bendis, Fortune and Glory: Well, now I know that I can detest a Bendis comic.

This is the story of Bendis in Hollywood, as he tries to make a movie out of his (quite good) comic Goldfish. The pictures are nicely cartoony–gooey arms, bug-eyes–but this is the first Bendis comic to bring out my Inner Editor. I found myself growling, “Cut this. This doesn’t work. Cut this. Cut this,” at the page. Ordinarily, Bendis’s repetitions and stuttering dialogue add to the suspense and drama of a scene. But here, since the stakes of the drama were so low (we already knew the movie doesn’t get made, and even if we didn’t know that, is this really super-exciting?), the dialogue style just felt like padding.

Moreover, much of the book is various people praising Bendis. Isn’t this… creepy?

Don’t buy this. But, also, don’t take this as representative of Bendis’s generally excellent work.

Ed Brubaker and Colin Wilson, Point Blank. I got this because it was the predecessor of Sleeper (which see). It’s a fun, twisty covert-ops riddle, with a harsh ending–like something written by a more sadistic Chandler. Until the end, I was underimpressed–was not taken by the art, and this is ultimately just very well-done comics noir–but the ending really twists in your gut. A short sharp shock. Won’t change your world, but it is worth your time.

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, Sleeper: Out in the Cold. This book is much prettier than Point Blank. It’s also not as smart. The premise is sweet: The only person who knows which side a deep cover agent is really working for is in a coma. In order to fulfill his purpose and maintain his identity, the agent has to somehow aid the side he’s really fighting for; but how can he do that when nobody trusts him?

The characterization is also very nicely done. I especially liked the woman who sickens and dies unless she hurts other people. I like anything that challenges the too-common assumption that acting rightly always makes people feel warm and cuddled.

The pages are laid out in tightly-controlled squares. Each character is tightly framed, constrained, often placed behind bars or in even more constraining doorways or windowframes; the squares are always hierarchically ordered on the page, mirroring the hierarchy of the criminal organization the sleeper agent has infiltrated. Hardly subtle, but good-looking nonetheless. I note that for whatever reason, the pages of this book also felt heavier or glossier–more fun to turn–than usual. There’s a predictable but effective sensual pleasure here.

I was seriously annoyed by one major plot element: This comic features a cabal that controls the world. That’s stupid. The world is messier than that. These people need to read their Hayek–top-down control will always be worked around; there is no They that tells you what to do and what to like. There are no excuses for our lousy choices.

Apparently Sleeper is only getting better, so perhaps this cabal is ultimately revealed as fakery; but within this book it irritated me and made the protagonists look gullible. Nor was it in any way necessary to the plot, at least not so far.

Despite these criticisms, I’m pretty sure I’ll be on the lookout for more Sleeper. There’s always room for slick noir fun.

Bruce Baugh reviews both books at greater length, and tells you more about the plot than I did (but not in a spoilery way).

Christophe Blain, The Speed Abater. I bought this as part of the ongoing ghost-ship project. It’s the story of a sailor in the French Navy and his misadventures aboard an aging ship. It is all right. The story takes a while to get off the ground, and really only startles and captures when the sailors descend into the mechanical hell that drives the ship. But the scenes amid the heat and noise of the machinery are vivid and powerful. Worth checking out if ships are your thing; otherwise probably not so much. I will say that Blain writes good argument scenes, which I respect since it’s something I find difficult.