From what I have heard from them, and the third issue of their comic Tales Form the 'Field (which I picked up a couple of months ago at Gem City Comic Con), I believe that the guys at Twilight Star Productions are in the latter group of artists. They work out of Springfield, Ohio, hence the name of the series. They look down on mainstream comics (which I should note is still pretty niche) such as Marvel, as they called an issue of Dark Avengers "a steaming turd," as I recall in an old article in the Dayton Daily News. Still, I read works from assholes all of the time (I still read Dilbert, after all), so I decided to try them out.
The first thing that I noticed about the comic was that they already put it in a protective bag with a board behind it when they gave it to me. This is generally a way that you protect a comic from damage, and given that no one else at GCCC did that, reinforced the air of pretension I got from these guys.
I open it up. There are about 3 complete stories, and two story fragments. The first story fragment is part called "The Unnaturals," first part of a series. Least as I can tell, it's about a superhero who gets his power from a high-tech suit hunting vampires with the aid of a Moth Man, who in this story were high priests of Atlantis who were kicked out because they prophesied the end of their civilization. This looks like it could be entertaining, but with only 4 pages of it in a single issue, it would take too much effort to get the whole story.
The next story is the third part of "Legacy." This seems to be a traditional superhero story. It certainly does look entertaining, but there are only 3 pages of it in here, so it has the same pitfalls as "The Unnaturals."
Next is the cover story, "Perfect Day." An awkward man releases an genie from a jar, and the genie allows him one wish. There is a catch, in that the effects of the wish will go away in 24 hours. He uses his wish to become a superhero, in order to woo a woman who turned him down at the beginning of the story. He performs exactly one act of heroism, takes the woman around the world, has sex with her, then falls asleep. (Some hero.) Faced with the fact that tomorrow he will go back to his old loser self, he chooses to fly to the sun to watch it as he loses his powers, burning himself alive. This does not really work as a superhero story at all, and it feels like it ends up as a Shaggy Dog Story. He we see TSP fall prey to the notion that True Art is Angsty. It wasn't a particularly entertaining story, and kind of depressing.
And the next one is even more depressing. Titled "My Girl," A girl that has previously lost her dad is now about to lose her mom to cancer, and she jumps off of a bridge. That's it. We are not with the character long enough to feel proper empathy towards her, which turns a heartwrenching tragedy into a depressing waste of time.
The last story, "Dragnet," is also pretty dark, but it is at least genuinely good. A man robs a jewelry store, and accidentally runs into a gypsy, who warns him that he will meet his end in a dragnet. He thinks she is referring to the police dragnets, so he goes by ocean. He gets caught in a fishing dragnet, and drowns when his air runs out. Not bad, like a 2 minute short story that they could expand and use as part of the Twilight Zone, although the twist is not all that surprising.
So, ranking them, I would say I like "Legacy" the best, followed by "Dragnet," then "The Unnaturals," "Perfect Day," and finally, in last place, "My Girl." I do not plan on buying any more issues of Tales From the 'Field, and I would not suggest you do either. It just is not that good.
No comments:
Post a Comment