Deeper thoughts don't matter
I’ve read two things drawn by Warren Pleece, the Invisibles where-in he only helped out with layouts for short time, and Deadenders. He’s a bit uneven, but many times better than most. Combined with Ed Brubaker, I keep getting back to Deadenders every month or two. Only 16 issues and I can’t let go. Perhpas it’s because unlike most Vertiog titles, it actually go with the whole “mature label”-thingamabob. Let’s face it, Hellblazer could have been in the regular DC just as tons of other titles.
The Invisibles, Transmetropolitan, Y: the Last Man, Kid Eternity (both series) and of course Deadenders are different, they speak up and has adult ideas—not just nudity, violence and the word “fuck.” At the same time Vertigo is also the non-superhero-publishing-for-creator-owned-material of DC Comics, for ebtter and for worse. Not all of it is creator-owned for instance. The Losers, awsome though it might be, sits uneasy at the “mature” label. I hate to say this, but at times it looks liek a Steven Segal movie and that’s not what I’d call mature. (Sorry.)
Not that it have to be wierded out of it’s own skull—like Kid Eternity—but it would be fun if they at least tried to do something that requires some thought. Right now, from my expereince, Kabuki is the most challanging and that’s not because of the ideas but of the presentation. Sleeper comes close at times, but it’s more like Danger Man or The Man from Uncle instead of the Prisoner. A spy-thriller by the numbers with predictable plot twists. Still good, but predictable.
I see this as a crisis of sorts. While it won’t ruin everything and threaten to cast the entire medium into a pit of dhoom—well, perhaps a small pit of dhoom, the barbeque version for the backyard—it is a bit alarming. Mindfuck me god damnit. But with Grant Morrison on regular superhero stuff and silence from both Bryan Talbot and Dave McKean that won’t happen soon I guess, except from smaller and more limited in scope such as Street Angel.
And if you find the plot twists in Sleeper predictable, you’re a better man than I, Gunga Din!
— Johnny Bacardi (@ 1. February 2005, 16:38)
Sleeper is kind of predictable once you get past the six first issues—not 100% tankfully like those Shamalamalayan-movies. There’s been a few really “whoa”-moments after that, but I think that’s because it stays true to the story. So it’s not always a bad thing. (Some of my friends tells me I should stop watching movies as I can see plot-twists so easily—but that misses the point of why I watch them.) Just read Sleeper 2:8, and yeah, while some of it was predictable on a higher level, on a lower one it was executed in a "did't see it happenign like THAT" kind of fashion. Sleeper rules.
— Nicklas (@ 2. February 2005, 00:42)