30a - 30d: Fatale, Books One through Four, by Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, Dave Stewart and Elizabeth Breitweiser (Comics) The (still ongoing) story of a mysterious femme fatale, capable of snaring almost any man alive, and the eldritch cult that pursues her over decades. The series was billed to me as “Lovecraft meets Mystery”, but that doesn’t do the actual books any justice. It’s an excellent dark fantasy series, to be certain—there’s a palpable sense of horror in the first book, but this is over-exposed as the series goes on, which is kind of a weakness of long-form horror, anyways. Brubaker starts off by mining all of the right genre tropes, but gradually starts developing the ageless femme fatale, Josephine, into more of a well-rounded and sympathetic character. It’s welcome, as there’s barely any other women with speaking roles here, but given that her curse is about constantly attracting men, the disparity actually SERVES A PURPOSE. The real star here is Sean Phillips, who has to draw everything from medieval France to grunge-era Seattle and every panel looks PERFECT. It’s art that really draws you in and keeps you, so if the script ever lags, I simply don’t mind as much.
Posted on: Fri, 09 May 2014 15:41:37 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015