The problem is that comic books, without the benefit of motion or sound, need to make a big impression with only the visual resource, but Leven understands how to convey emotion and humor while tapping into an honesty and truth. Comic books, however, often rely on the harder edge of aiming for realism, and therefore fall back on illustration too often. Cartoons are generally known for being representational, more exaggerated and in line with caricature. When it comes to comic book art, there's often a push and pull between representation and illustration. So maybe I'm an easy lay here? Beyond that, however, there's little touches like Will clinging to a golf club, scared of the knocking at his front door in the middle of the night, or how Evans and Carrie could have walked out of the tabloids but are given layers of their own. These are the kinds of things that can land like a brick with those outside the know, but for pet owners (I have both a cat and a dog) it's a shorthand that communicates so much. It's cliché, but it works: they're both lonely and want companions, cat people are a bit more aloof, dog people are a bit more fun. There's the aforementioned fact that Will is the optimist and Gigi is the pessimist, but there's also simple signifiers like him owning a cat and she owns a dog. Get it?! Yet it's a simple touch that mostly goes unacknowledged. Ares, god of war and Aphrodite, goddess of love. He's able to imbue complexity, although sometimes he falls back on a few old chestnuts. Gigi, the woman immersed in the wedding industry, is a cynic and takes the other side, having lost all faith in finding "the one" some day. Surprisingly Will is out to prove that they will stay together, thus proving that love does exist. This leads to a bet between the two on whether or not Evans and Carrie will stay together when faced with paparazzi scandal. When he finds himself working alongside Gigi Averelle because of mutual clients, the movie producer Evans Beatty and up-and-coming Hollywood sweetheart Carrie Cartwright, the two can't help but falling in love and in usual romantic comedy fashion denying the attraction. A brick was thrown through his windshield, stuffed animals with severed heads have been mailed to his apartment, and he's scared stiff. Will Ares is a successful divorce lawyer that has been getting death threats recently. It's a change of pace, and with the nicely representational, cartoonish style of Megan Levens it's one worth checking out. Ares & Aphrodite, however, couldn't be farther from that, focusing on a high-priced lawyer and a wedding planner reluctantly falling in love amidst the toxic pit that is Hollywood. Oni has been known over the years for its grounded, human stories dealing with punk rock and crime, and also functioning as a launch pad for indie authors that not long after blossomed into superhero stardom (sometimes, unfortunately, for the worse). Released by Dark Horse, Lady Killer was also trying to appeal to a different kind of crowd than Ares & Aphrodite: Love Wars, the new original graphic novel from Oni Press. Too many scant shots of bras poking out, too much of the male gaze, but that could be a byproduct of artist Joelle Jones's style, which considering the material was appropriately amped up and provocative. I reviewed Lady Killer a few months ago and was impressed with its subversion of the usual 1950s housewife tropes, although it did veer a bit into the expected cheesecake of female leads in this medium. Rich is a comic book writer I'm becoming more familiar with as someone open to writing different kinds of stories.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |