milk11 (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} milk11) wrote,@ 2008-12-02 18:21:00 |
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| Entry tags: | comics, review |
I Can See Your Breath Beneath Me When You're Gone
If you can recall that far back, you might remember that I started reading Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane over a year ago and started to really get into it. At the time, I ordered up to volume 13 and then learned that writer Sean McKeever had signed on exclusively with DC and would be leaving the series. Luckily, Marvel paid him for the scripts through vol. 20, which ran through last year and ended in a pseudo wrap-up. I wanted to keep up with the series, but trips to Dragon's Keep were too infrequent and they never seemed to have a copy of the latest issue when I was there anyway, so I sort of forgot about it. Several weeks ago I came across the collection and re-read them, and finally ordered the rest of the McKeever series online. They took their sweet time arriving but I've finally finished the series now (ps. Thank you, Mr. Postman, for folding the package and cramming it into our mailbox).
Speaking of adorable, Peter Parker as drawn by Takeshi Miyazawa is the cutest little nerdboy ever.
But sadly, Takeshi Miyazawa left the comic at vol. 15 to further pursue his career. The art was left to David Hahn, and the switch in styles is directly responsibly for making last 5 volumes a bit more difficult for me to enjoy. Miyazawa's art was full of a lot of curved lines, clean perspectives, and really gave character to the talking bubbles. Hahn's art was just very... different. I personally found it to not be as expressive and clean as Miyazawa's, and having grown rather attached to the original style it was rather jarring to see characters say the same style of lines but be "acting" so differently. Emotion and expression all came out differently for the characters than it previously had. I stand by the notion that good writing trumps good art, but in the comic format the two interact in a really important way, so understandably the last few volumes felt a little flat to me. In another situation I might have liked the art just fine, but the drastic shift and was pretty distracting. I found myself reading the speech bubbles and then imagining what the panel might have looked like in the old art form to try to get back into the story. (Though in defense of the artist, I gave myself no time to get used to the style like I would have if I'd been keeping up with collecting the series, thus compacting the effect.)
The story itself, by the way, wraps up pretty nicely. Sorta. A combination of this being a teen drama and of being part of a much larger and more established story, the main characters can't possibly end up up together at this point. Which I mostly accept, except that gosh dang it can't Peter Parker and MJ just kiss or something already? But I guess you gotta leave something for the next guy to do, right?
In this case, the "next guys" are writer Terry Moore and artist Craig Rousseau. Unwilling to let their unexpected little hit die, Marvel wrapped up "season one" of the series and announced it would continue after a break. Vol. 1 of the new SMLMJ series was released earlier this year in August. Reviews are mostly positive but a bit mixed, as a lot of other people seem to have preferred the McKeever/Miyazawa team as well. I have considered stopping my collection at this point, since the McKeever ending was pretty much as conclusive as I was expecting, but I'm a bit intrigued by where the new ones might take it. I'd love some sort of personal recommendation for the new issues, but as no one I personally know reads them, we'll just stick with "may pick up out of curiosity," or "may use to fill out my Christmas wish list."
NON SEQUITUR BONUS TIME:
