Diary of an up and coming sociopath

This blog entry is part of a series where I’m going back and posting unfinished entries, if only to clear out my CMS.

Presented without further comment, the second of three reviews I actually wrote for an intended project to review all the stories in the Project: Superior comics anthology, back in 2005.

Story #2: Brian Wood’s “The Watcher”

The second story in Project Superior is The Watcher by Brian Wood. Stylistically, it’s about as far away from the previous story, The Amazing Friends, as you can realistically get in comics. It contains no dialogue, barely any text at all, in fact, and there’s very little in the way of conventional plot or narrative. Unfortunately, there’s a price to innovative and unique, and in the case of this story, that price is making the story disappointing impenetrable.

Wood’s art is always glorious to behold, and this is no exception, though it’s actually hurt slightly by being coloured, compared to the monochrome sample available on his website. It’s rare that Wood both writes and illustrates a story, and it’s easy to tell that he’s got a talent for both. From his other work, that is. As a big fan of Brian Wood, I find The Watcher is something of a let down. It seems unclear what’s actually going on in the narrative, with too much left open to interpretation. I’m sure if that’s the case then it’s intentional, but I find it no more satisfactory to assume that, because it doesn’t change that I can get almost nothing out of reading it. Is the main character a hero? A villain? What’s he actually doing? Is he supposed to have powers? The more I think about it, the less hope I have that I’ll find any new way of interpreting it. I’m going to have to concede defeat on this one and just ask: What does anyone who’s read this think is going on?

Fact is, while I love Brian Wood, this is easily my least favourite thing out of everything he’s done. He recently took on the “indie comics do superheroes” concept in a 12-issue series of what he termed “graphic novellas” which was drawn by Becky Cloonan, and it’s fair to say that any single one of those issues is a vastly superior example of what heights can be achieved with the superhero genre if you give it to creators who can look at it sideways. The man’s one of my favourite writers, so it’s hard to be objective, but if I were to read this anywhere else I’d probably ignore it completely as a bad read and move on. If you like the artwork on this, though, it’s definitely worth checking out Channel Zero, which Wood also wrote and illustrated, and which has similar silhouetted photorealism and use of negative space. He is an artist unlike many others. Just, don’t make this story the only chance you give him, alright?

Website: http://www.brianwood.com - An up to date, constantly redesigned and totally jam-packed site contaiing information on his past, present and future work, and best of all, a livejournal where you can read his latest ramblings. The livejournal, in fact, which first pointed me in the direction of Project: Superior. Would that all comics creators were so dedicated and enthusiastic.